The Estate - A Movie Review

This will make Aunt Hilda happy. She’ll give us her estate for sure!

The Estate is a 2022 film centered around the story of two sisters vying for their dying Aunt Hilda's estate. Hoping to win her favor, they resort to various bribes and good deeds, but they soon discover they are not the only family members with greedy intentions.

I felt like I needed to take a shower after viewing this movie. Starting off with funny jokes and a strong duo performance by Toni Collette and Anna Faris, The Estate transforms into a distasteful comedy with unsavory characters and cringe-worthy jokes.

Aside from their talents being robbed in an awful like this, Toni Collette and Anna Faris made a great team. They were funny together and had the best chemistry. Collette and Faris should have been the only characters instead of forcing other family members into the story. Besides, we’ve seen stories like these play out several times.

Not just Collette and Faris, but the potential of other talented actors in the cast goes to waste. Unfortunately, their interactions are overshadowed by the shallow characters they portray and the crude dialogue they are given from the script (if there was one). The cast is given little to work with aside from belittling each other and trying to win over Aunt Hilda.

Beatrice (Rosemarie DeWitt) has a better time gaining approval from Aunt Hilda as she bakes her favorite foods and cleans the house for her. Unwaverly bringing her husband (Ron Livingston) into this, she ignores anything he says. I didn’t realize until after that DeWitt and Livingston are married in real life.

I felt so bad for David Duchovny. Richard is a gross person with inappropriate sexual fantasies geared toward his family! And that’s his whole character. Every sentence that comes out of his mouth vomits his pleas to get in bed with his COUSINS.

Kathleen Turner delivers a humorous performance as Aunt Hilda. She was a standout in the movie, making her character as crass as she wanted. Everyone is trying to get on her good side in hopes to have the estate. She gets manhandled a lot, like Collette and Faris kidnapping her into their car.

The comedy is inconsistent. Sometimes it knew what it was doing while other times writers were desperate to make something work. The best reaction was when Aunt Hilda threw a sandwich at Faris leading to the most priceless reaction ever. That was the only time I laughed out loud. More instances like this would have enhanced the overall comedic experience.

The Estate had a fun premise at the start with jokes that were funny and characters in realistic predicaments which they needed to escape if they garnered the estate’s fortune. It all derails into a pitiful and raunchy comedy that was just embarrassing to watch.

I honestly thought that one character’s exit from the story was the actor's decision! I wanted to join that character when they left. This story had so much potential to be more but falls flat with awful sex jokes and an unnecessary storyline. It failed to achieve any narrative and lacks character development. The characters felt so wooden and unbelievable.

I am so glad that I did NOT go see The Estate in theaters when it was out! When I saw it was streaming on Hulu, I watched this movie purely for the talents involved. Somehow I made it through this movie while skipping ahead of some scenes. Save your eyes because there are better films that do this premise right.