Rating: NR | Runtime: 87 minutes
Release Date: November 29th, 2024 (Canada) / March 21st, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Factory 25
Director(s): Ben Petrie
Writer(s): Ben Petrie

Don’t get the chicken Kung Pao.

Allie (Grace Glowicki) watches home movies to better remember the moments from her life that she cherishes the most. Eric (Ben Petrie) lives his life as though it can be perfectly executed as a film he can experience for the first time only after it’s complete. You’d like to say their relationship epitomizes the “opposites attract” philosophy, yet you can’t help bracing yourself for the wheels to finally come off. Thankfully, rather than test the integrity of their union with a baby, Allie and Eric take the more reasonable approach of adopting a dog. Milly the Whippet still creates the same crisis point of responsibility and commitment, but with greatly reduced stakes.

Written and directed by Petrie (from a story by himself and real-life partner Glowicki), The Heirloom throws us into the deep end with Allie stomping up the stairs to barge into Eric’s office just after he hastily buckles his belt to ensure it looks like he’s working on his script and not masturbating. Her excitement stems from hearing back from an “ethical” dog breeder that they can get their names on the reservation list of an impending litter. She’s been emailing countless shelters with zero response and thus took the leap to secure a puppy before COVID lockdown makes getting any pet impossible. Eric feels blindsided because his one stipulation for agreeing to the dog was that it be a rescue.

Everything seems normal so far. Allie really wants this and cannot contain her emotions en route to perhaps jumping the gun out of a false sense of immediacy. Eric wants her to be happy, but his lack of interest in caring for the dog has him focusing on assuaging any guilt that purchasing one might make him complicit in a system of suffering. Yes, both sides are hyperbolic for the comedy, but we get where they’re coming from. And the fact that Petrie skews even further from sanitized fantasies of utopian love to let these characters go through the self-admitted, asinine process of Allie emailing Eric—while in the same room—to “book time” to discuss next steps only endears us to the scenario more.

That’s when things start to go off the rails. Eric, needing to be in control and letting his inner director out, gets very into learning everything he can to be the perfect dog owner raising the perfect dog. He tells Allie how to act despite her catalyzing this whole endeavor. She’s not only not allowed to show emotion. She must be devoid of it. Because it’s not enough to simply look calm (according to his book-on-tape), you must be calm when asserting your “quiet dominance” over the creature. Suddenly this fun new chapter in their lives becomes a regimented to-do list of chores. And since Eric is the one dictating it—not to mention failing at his rules—any mistake ultimately puts the blame upon his shoulders.

It therefore makes sense that his existential crisis, stemming from the knee-jerk necessity to reconcile his father’s devotion to work and his mother’s devotion to family, threatens to turn an already delicate situation more tenuous. Rather than allow himself to live with the woman he loves and the dog they’ve adopted while also working towards his career goal of becoming a filmmaker, he decides those two things must merge to receive his full attention. But, as the distinction I laid out in the opening paragraph reveals, the simple act of doing this means they are not equal. Allie sees through the ruse straight away but hopes things will work out. We, however, witness as Eric turns his life into a project so his brain can wrap itself around allowing it to possess meaning.

The result is formally intriguing with Petrie leaning into this duality. He blurs the line between reality and fiction in such a way that we cannot tell which is which. We know Eric is recreating moments to set-up how they acquired Milly—Allie plays along in intentionally over-the-top, silly fashion—but he’s also running through multiple takes of new experiences. Does that mean he’s pausing authentic reactions to events so he can play with the responses? Or is he merely doing so in his head because he’s only currently able to process reality through the practice of filmmaking? Add the fact that the fiction’s reality of Eric and Allie is itself a fiction to the reality of Ben and Grace and it shouldn’t shock you when a boom operator walks across the screen or a drone shot loses the score so the whir of its engine can dominate.

I enjoyed this aspect of the film a lot (including its commentary on the pandemic’s isolation and heightened anxiety) and also invested in the Milly of it all considering her mannerisms are identical to how our Greyhound acted throughout his life, but the big draw is Glowicki’s performance during the second act once Eric fully spirals out of control. Allie, thankfully, gets real very quickly. She processes what’s happening as we are and harbors no illusions as far as what Eric is becoming (or finally revealing to her). I love the contrast of how level-headed and honest she is while he continues to lie and obfuscate the truth to maintain a semblance of control. Whether they stay together or part ways proves inconsequential to Allie’s epiphany that something must change either way.

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Ben Petrie and Grace Glowicki in THE HEIRLOOM; courtesy of Factory 25.