• Release year: 2023
• Director: Marco Deufemia.
• Producers: Myles Milne and Jessica Reis.
• Screenplay by: Neale Kimmel.
• Cinematography by: Aldo Quirván.
• Music by: Steph Copeland.

Shotgun Commentary: cosy mystery for a lazy afternoon.

Review

The Jane Mysteries: Inheritance Lost is probably the best mystery of the Jane Mysteries saga. At least from the first three instalments. While it does have its flaws, the story is compelling and twisted, and the ending surprising and well tied. It doesn’t come as a surprise that Hallmark decided to invest in this franchise after the first film. Plus, even though the sequels are way lower in quality, they still share the cosy vibes and signature Hallmark-signature worldbuilding where even murder looks snug.

More questions than answers

First things first, don’t expect a masterpiece. The writing is great, especially considering it’s Hallmark we are talking about, but don’t expect your mind to be blown. Nevertheless, do expect a nice narrative with clumsy effects and mostly adequate acting that will entertain you for a bit.

Once you start watching, it will take very little for you to realise what your next hour and a half will look like. Granted, the beginning is probably the worst bit of the whole piece. Still, it does serve to warn you of the quality you are to expect and to keep your expectations low in order to enjoy the result so much more.

Picture this: a really low budget scene of a woman preparing to sing, and then singing on a very dark stage (you gotta recycle those sets seamlessly, amirite?). This woman will be the main character of the saga: Jane Da Silva. She is in Paris, getting ready to perform, when an American cop goes backstage looking for her. He explains that he’s been sent by her aunt to tell her that her uncle is dead, and that she needs to go back home.

At this point (around two minutes into the film), the questions are already piling up. How does a cop get the money for an impromptu flight across the Atlantic? Why didn’t the aunt go herself? Couldn’t they just call her? Is she supposed to leave her whole life behind because her aunt feels like it? The questions just keep coming, but you need to learn to tune them off, you’ll never get any answers anyway.

Out of focus

In addition to this mess of an intro, all the technical aspects seem to work against the movie. It’s as if there was a competition going on where the worst part of the scene wins. Jane’s audio is completely off, bringing back spicy memories to everyone who’s ever had the unlucky experience of being part of a student film project where no one knows how to record or edit audio. The image is smoothed to a ridiculous level. It is almost like that one horrible The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) scene. You know the one I’m talking about. Thankfully, no slowmo was involved in this instance.

After the almost traumatically bad beginning, everything gets a lot better. The audio is polished, the editing of the images looks a lot more natural, and the story starts making sense. The whole tale seems to run quite fluidly, and it is almost a great feature, except for a couple of Hallmark-type issues in character development and acting.

The real mystery

The usual suspects Jane, Detective John Cameron (Stephen Huszar) and Sadie (Paris Jefferson), have a nice overall evolution and are well portrayed. However, the two main supporting characters are so nonsensical you can’t help but laugh.

These supporting characters are Kenny Martin (Martin Roach) and Lia Martin (Danielle Smith), husband and daughter of the victim. The young girl is also Jane’s first client. She is a teen who walks up to Jane’s house and tells her all that she needs her help investigating the supposed suicide of her mother because she doesn’t believe that she would unalive herself because she loved her a lot. All of this, WITH A BIG SMILE ON HER FACE.

Additionally, after the very emotional story made somewhat incredibly creepy by her constantly happy face, she casually mentions that she just got an opportunity to get into Juilliard but needs her mother’s inheritance money to do so. Now, this writer is no detective, but if a girl looking for her dead mother’s money tries to pass off her economic concern as an emotional bond while non-stop smiling at me… That’s suspicious, no? At the very least, it is not very normal…is it?

Then you meet her father, a man who seems super nice at first. Then, he low-key threatens Jane while invading her personal space quite aggressively, and after that gets all emotional and nostalgic, pouring his heart to Jane, and signing off as a good guy. Again, I’m not a professional, but, at the very least, therapy…?

All in all, The Jane Mysteries: Inheritance Lost presents an intriguing case, with a compelling evolution and a clean, surprising ending. It is just quirky and low-budget enough to be funny without getting boring, and just pretty enough to be cosy without becoming completely unrealistic.

Advice to take from this movie:

• In case there is any confusion, your partner talking to their shrink more than to you is normal. People need to heal on their own, without depending on other people for their wellbeing.
• For anyone who needs to hear this, if someone is clearly hiding from you at a bar, they don’t want to talk to you, much less for you to sit with them. Don’t put them out.
• For any psychopaths out there, smiling is not the best way to convey sadness and despair.

What’s your take? Have you watched The Jane Mysteries: Inheritance Lost? What are your thoughts on murder mysteries?

Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, or leave a message in my contact page! For more reviews and cinema-related articles, check out the rest of my blog! 😀