We all adore some joyful guilty pleasures. And, Spadek (eng.: Inheritance), Netflix’s newest comedy with a stellar cast and full of generic “dad jokes,” seems like one of them. 

What ingredients do we need to have an attractive premise for a mystery film? Firstly, it’s all about a random old house full of riddles and secrets. Secondly, it’s good to have guests; like ones who haven’t seen each other eons, arriving due to an unexpected message. And, the final part? It is a terrific murder that makes the family meeting even more dreadful. 

Is it an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel, or a rather new take on Rian Johnson’s Knives Out? Well, the answer is somewhere in between, but Spadek still tends to be quite entertaining, even if it draws too strongly from its classical predecessors. It is not a contender to be in the top Polish films of 2024, but it has its moments. And, that’s already something.

Ineluctably, Spadek commences with a dead person – these are the rules of the genre. This time, the corpse belongs to an eccentric inventor and millionaire, Władysław (exceptional, as always, Jan Peszek). The entire family learns about their uncle’s sudden death, so they gather to inherit his fortune. None of them truly deserves it (they haven’t been in touch with Władysław since their childhoods), and the uncle knows it – he’s a genius, after all. Before his death (or, was it murder?) Władysław prepared one final game to see if they really cared about the family, or if it was only about the inheritance.

Surprisingly, we learn that Peszek’s character didn’t have an elitist bone in his body. Instead of purely scolding his family and treating them as a bunch of blue-collar failures (just like Christopher Plummer’s character in Knives Out), Władysław wanted them to confront their lies and advance as better human beings. And, as a one united family, too.

Cheesy jokes and gags relying on stereotypes don’t help, as they make us feel like we’re listening to dialogues written in the previous century. But, the collective co-performance of our actors is something noteworthy. It’s like a breath of fresh air that penetrates the stuffy rooms of Władysław’s old mansion. The chemistry of this on-screen ménage is, actually, there. The thespians – from Maciej Stuhr to Gabriela Muskała, Michał Polak and Mateusz Król – theatrically act according to their characters’ attitudes. At first, they all loathe each other, but, sooner or later, they will have to learn how to work together… to solve this not-so-intricate case.

Spadek isn’t a Polish comedy at its best. However, its cringy-like dynamics prove that even though the script lacks some better ideas, the entire project is full of cinephilic passion towards Polish humour and its nitties-gritties. 

3/5 stars

Author: Jan Tracz