The Inheritance shows us how different a man’s life is when he decides to enter his family business as a successor to his father. Christoffer’s life and character completey changes after he decides to take over his father’s role. In the beggining of the movie you see Christoffer enjoying life with his wife Maria. His life seemed to be care free until he decided to run his family business. In the early stages of his leadership role Christoffer showed compassion for those in the business which is why it was difficult for him to lay off employees. As the movie progresses you can see his relationship with Maria fade away as he deals with the stress of managing the business. I think the circumstances in which the business was handed over to Christoffer forced him to become cold-hearted which almost lead him to abuse his maid after his wife left him. I feel like that was a major turning point as he realized what the business has done to him.
The mother seemed to be cold-hearted throughout the movie. Her main concern was the health of the business and not the family. I feel like there shoud be some sort of balance between the family aspect and business aspect of the organization. The mother definitely played a role in gearing her son in the wrong direction as she tried to mold him into her own character. She had no regard for Maria or her own daughter’s feelings throughout this major transition.
A shocking moment in the movie was when Christoffer’s brother-in-law Ulrik started a rumor that Christoffer was planning on taking money from the business. This forced Christoffer to fire Ulrik before a board meeting where he was likely to be voted as the director. Although this was definitely the right choice, it created tension between Christoffer and Benedikte (his sister). Here we saw how a business decisions can ruin a family relationship. What I found interesteing was how towards the end of the movie Christoffer rehired Ulrik in order to mend his relationship with his sister. This was a very difficult decision for Christoffer but it was definitely necessary to create a better balance between the family and business.
Juan,
you raised some very good points: I agree with you in terms of the balance that should always be present between our personal life and the business, yet I believe often times it is very difficult to control it and easy to loose the real perceptions of how things are going (especially if the direction is the wrong one). Throughout the movie Christopher becomes colder and colder but then as you pointed out he does show some sympathy towards the end, when he decides to re-hire Ulrik, only to make Benedikte joyful again.
However that doesn’t seems to change much in terms of his own feelings: indeed he appears sad and unhappy with his life and how things have turned out.
I agree that there need to be a balance between the family and the business. Yes, it could be hard, but if boundaries are set from the beginning, it could be achievable which would be beneficial for both the family and the business. Letting the business take over is disastrous as we’ve seen with the father committing suicide, the family broken and everybody unhappy.