Due to premiere this year at the London Film Festival, The Estate demonstrates what a group of money grabbing relatives can do when it comes to an inheritance.
Written and directed by Dean Craig (Death at a Funeral), it opens with café opening sisters Macey (Toni Collette) and Savanna (Anna Faris) receiving word that their ailing Aunt Hilda (Kathleen Turner) is dying. With her fortune rumoured to be in the millions, this distant relative seems like the answer to all their financial worries.
Having decided to wheedle their way into her good graces, they arrive to find cousins Richard (David Duchovny), Beatrice (Rosemarie DeWitt) and her husband James (Ron Livingstone) in attendance. What unfolds over the next ninety minutes is a dark slice of farce imaginable, underpinned by some stand out performances from an excellent ensemble cast.
This is a sharply written script intended to push the boundaries of good taste in every direction. Key to the seedy undercurrent which permeates The Estate is David Duchovny, who sports calf length trousers, patent leather slip-ons with no socks and a military grade flat top. Combined with a questionable moustache and dialogue which illustrates an ongoing desire to sleep with family, Richard is a work of comedy genius.
As bickering sisters Macey and Savanna, both Faris and Collette excel in creating chemistry between them, while their family reunion kicks off like a dumpster fire. With an immobile Aunt Hilda berating her would-be inheritors, while complaining she will never feel the touch of a man again, Kathleen Turner adds some spice to proceedings by cranking up the curmudgeon.
Although The Estate never aims to re-invents the genre, it delivers some original twists in amongst all that cliche. The question of why it has received such a poor critical reception might have something to do with its subject matter. Dean Craig has written and directed a very dark piece of comedy here, which delves into death, makes light of incest and includes at least one reformed sex offender.
In terms of breaching taste boundaries, husbands are offered to ailing aunts, while younger sisters are recruited in to undermine aging sex pests. Be warned, this film really digs deep when it comes to mining every possible avenue of degradation. The Estate also sticks primarily to a single location, while this coven of conniving cousins raises the bar in their efforts to impress Aunt Hilda.
Everyone here acts out of self-interest, shaping their agendas according to circumstance, while empathy is in very short supply. Beyond that, this is a sharp and engaging, which delivers some genuinely dark laugh-out-loud moments.
Those quibbles aside, The Estate is also bolstered by some incidental musical interludes from Will Bates, who uses a combination of propulsive percussion and guitar licks to add some colour to any dramatic set pieces. In truth, this film is propped up primarily by some R & B standards selectively placed, which serve to break up moments of farce or distract as characters travel between locations.
However, for a majority of the time music is used sparingly as dialogue shapes character motivations and savage slices of pitch-black comedy continually lower the bar. Coming in the form of some repulsive sight gags and increasingly seedy one-liners from Richard, who finds David Duchovny going for broke beneath the creepy façade of a professional letch.
Elsewhere, Anna Faris seems to be having an equally good time as Savanna, cranking up her volume in line with including amounts of exasperation. Transparent in her calculating need for cash, Savanna affords Faris some of the best lines alongside Duchovny, while RoseMarie DeWitt plays uptight and prissy to the max as Beatrice. Meanwhile, Toni Collette might not get all the best material as Macey, but if The Estate does anything for her, it demonstrates an ability to deliver a degree of dramatic nuance, even in these heightened circumstances.
The Estate was not only deserving of its slot at The London Film Festival this year, but robbed audiences of an opportunity to see David Duchovny delivering one of his finest performances in ages. If for no other reason than that, this film deserves all the attention audiences can offer.
The Estate is out in selected cinemas and on demand now.
