Christmas Inheritance (2017)

Christmas Inheritance arrived on Netflix in December 2017, one month after A Christmas Prince had accidentally proven that streaming audiences would devour holiday rom-coms by the millions. Where A Christmas Prince had a fictional European kingdom, Christmas Inheritance had something arguably more fantastical: a small American town where everyone is kind, the snow is always fresh, and the local inn has a vacancy at Christmas.

The Plot of Christmas Inheritance

Ellen Langford (Eliza Taylor) is the party-going daughter of Jim Langford (Neil Crone), the CEO of a gift-basket company called Home and Hearth. Jim built his empire from a tiny town called Snow Falls, and he's tired of watching Ellen stumble out of clubs and into tabloid photos. His ultimatum: travel to Snow Falls with only $100 in your pocket, deliver a personal letter to his former business partner Uncle Zeke (Anthony Sherwood), and prove you understand the company's values. Do this, and you inherit the company.

Ellen arrives in Snow Falls with designer luggage and no winter coat. She checks into the local inn run by Debbie Collins (Andie MacDowell) and her son Jake (Jake Lacy). Her $100 doesn't last long. She loses her wallet. A snowstorm traps her in town. Somewhere between baking cookies and helping decorate the town Christmas tree, she falls for Jake and discovers that small-town generosity beats New York nightlife.

If you've seen any Hallmark Christmas movie, you already know every beat. The film knows you know, and it doesn't care.

The Christmas Inheritance Cast

Eliza Taylor, best known as Clarke Griffin on The CW's post-apocalyptic series The 100, plays Ellen with enough natural charisma to survive the script's thinnest moments. She's believable as someone who is both spoiled and fundamentally decent, which is the tightrope the whole movie walks. Taylor had been shooting The 100 in Vancouver for four seasons by this point, and her comfort in Canadian winter locations shows.

Jake Lacy is the real find here. He'd already shown his range in Obvious Child (2014) opposite Jenny Slate and in HBO's Girls, and he plays Jake Collins with a quiet warmth that never tips into saccharine. Lacy has a knack for making "nice guy" roles feel lived-in rather than written. He would go on to prove his versatility as the unsettling Shane in The White Lotus (2021).

Andie MacDowell plays Debbie Collins, the inn owner and Jake's mother. MacDowell doesn't get much to do beyond being gracious and maternal, but she lends the film credibility it hasn't entirely earned. When a four-time Golden Globe nominee is serving you hot chocolate in a fictional Vermont inn, you tend to accept the setting as real.

The weakest link is Gray Pittman (Michael Xavier), Ellen's fiance back in New York. He exists purely as a contrast to Jake: slick where Jake is genuine, self-interested where Jake is selfless. Gray is less a character than a plot device in an expensive suit.

Where Was Christmas Inheritance Filmed

Despite being set in the fictional town of Snow Falls (implied to be in New England), Christmas Inheritance was filmed in and around Ontario, Canada. The small-town exteriors were shot in various locations outside Toronto, dressed with the kind of relentless Christmas decoration that only a production design team can achieve. Every storefront has garland. Every lamppost has a wreath.

The inn interiors have a cozy, overstuffed quality that works for the story. Director Ernie Barbarash, a Canadian filmmaker with a long resume of direct-to-video action movies, brings competent visual storytelling to a genre he hadn't worked in before. The movie looks warmer and more polished than its budget would suggest, largely because the Canadian crew knew how to shoot snow.

Christmas Inheritance on Netflix: The Streaming Formula

Christmas Inheritance was part of Netflix's first serious push into original holiday content. The strategy was simple: produce inexpensive romantic comedies that could fill the same niche as Hallmark Channel originals, but available on-demand without a cable subscription. In 2017, this was still a new idea. By 2019, Netflix had a full pipeline of holiday originals, and Christmas Inheritance was one of the titles that proved the model worked.

The TMDB audience score of 6.3 puts it squarely in "pleasant but forgettable" territory. Critics were harsher. But the metrics that matter to Netflix aren't critical scores; they're completion rates and repeat views. Christmas Inheritance was designed to be watched on a couch in December, probably while doing something else, and by that standard it succeeds.

The film doesn't try to subvert its genre. There's no meta-commentary, no ironic distance, no twist ending. It is exactly what it promises to be: a story about a rich woman who learns to appreciate simple things by spending a week in a cute town with a handsome innkeeper. If that sounds appealing, you'll enjoy it. If it sounds exhausting, nothing in the execution will change your mind.

Should You Watch Christmas Inheritance

The honest case for this movie is Eliza Taylor and Jake Lacy. They generate more chemistry than the script gives them room to explore, and their scenes together have an easy, unforced quality. The honest case against it is everything else: the predictable plot, the one-dimensional fiance, the magical $100 budget that somehow covers a multi-day stay at an inn.

Christmas Inheritance is comfort food. It's a grilled cheese sandwich when you wanted something more interesting but didn't feel like cooking. It has warm lighting, falling snow, and Andie MacDowell telling you everything is going to be fine. At 105 minutes, it runs about 15 minutes too long, mostly because the third-act conflict (will Ellen choose Gray or Jake?) generates zero suspense.

The final scene has the whole town gathered around a Christmas tree, which is the only way a movie like this can end. Somewhere in the background, Uncle Zeke is holding Jim Langford's letter, and nobody in Snow Falls seems to find it strange that a billion-dollar company's succession plan hinges on a week at a bed-and-breakfast.