Intimacy is core to good indie filmmaking, and The Heirloom is a masterclass in transforming the deeply personal into something profoundly universal. Directed by Ben Petrie, who also stars alongside real-life partner Grace Glowicki, this inventive, nervy two-hander blurs the line between reality and fiction, crafting a painfully funny and often excruciating portrait of artistic ambition colliding with domestic inertia. The film feels both tightly controlled and chaotically spontaneous, a warts-and-all depiction of a relationship teetering on the edge of something—love, disaster, or perhaps, just quiet dissolution.
Set during the pandemic, The Heirloom follows Eric (Petrie), a filmmaker paralysed by his own perfectionism, and Allie (Glowicki), his patient but increasingly frustrated girlfriend. As Eric obsesses over an endlessly rewritten script, the couple adopts a rescue dog, Millie, who becomes both a source of their anxieties and an unwitting therapist for their woes. This simple setup allows Petrie to explore the stifling claustrophobia of lock-down, not just in terms of physical space, but in the way relationships magnify insecurities and amplify personal failures.
What The Heirloom does so well is portray that gnawing feeling of being stuck, not just in a relationship, but in a self-imposed artistic purgatory. Eric’s creative frustrations bleed into his domestic life, and vice versa, with both realms defined by his inability to let go, make a decision, or commit fully to anything. He is a man literally and figuratively rewriting his own narrative, but never actually living it. Allie’s exasperation is clear, her patience wearing thin as she tries to navigate the increasingly untenable dynamics of their relationship. The fact that both actors are playing versions of themselves adds another layer of self-laceration, an act of artistic masochism that never veers into self-indulgence.
“…explores the stifling claustrophobia of lock-down…”
The film-within-a-film structure, where Eric turns their real-life struggles into cinematic fodder, is a stroke of genius. The idea could have felt gimmicky or overly meta, but instead, Petrie uses it to interrogate the inherent selfishness of the creative process, exposing the way filmmakers mine their lives (and those of their loved ones) for material. The result is something that feels akin to watching Noah Baumbach rewrite Marriage Story through the lens of Curb Your Enthusiasm—excruciating, hilarious, and painfully real.
Visually, cinematographer Kelly Jeffrey makes clever use of limited space, and natural light, capturing the warm nature of Eric and Allie’s existence while finding inventive ways to keep the film visually engaging. Even the angles used are intimate, at times intrusive, and work to immerse us in this world with two people who, for all their flaws, remain endlessly watchable. The subtle, sparse musical score serves well to highlight key moments and accompany transitional scenes.
The Heirloom is lean and sharp, a film that knows exactly what it’s doing even when its protagonist doesn’t. It’s messy, raw, and absurd, yet beneath its neurotic humour lies a deeply affecting meditation on love, creativity, and the fear of moving forward. A perfect marriage? Perhaps not. But it’s one hell of a film.
"…a painfully funny and often excruciating portrait"
