The Heirloom
Written and directed by Ben Petrie
Starring Ben Petrie and Grace Glowicki
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour and 27 minutes
In theaters March 28

by Billie Anderson, Staff Writer

I grew up surrounded by pets, and it always seemed inevitable that when I moved out, I’d welcome an animal companion into my life. As a child, however, pets were merely incidental roommates—figments of an ideal rather than true companions. I think I liked the idea of having animals more than their actual presence. I’d let my dog out when he whimpered or give my cat a passing pat as she strolled by, but they were simply part of the background—never fully “mine.” It was a hard lesson to learn, realizing that pets are real beings with their own desires, not just cute objects meant to be adored.

It wasn’t until years later, after my now-husband and I had lived together for a while, that we decided to add a pet to our shared world. After much gentle persuasion (and plenty of loving debate), he agreed to adopt a cat—primarily for me—and soon enough, we met Onion, a small, outgoing black kitten who, as if by design, took over our lives. Her arrival initiated a series of adjustments we hadn’t anticipated. We quickly learned that by responding to every meow, we were inadvertently teaching her to be relentlessly vocal—a quirk I adore but which inevitably creates its own set of problems. Our nights soon became punctuated not by quiet sleep but by her insistent announcements, especially when she chose our bedroom as her stage. When we finally decided to close the bedroom door for some rest in our old apartment, she discovered that she could slip her paw under the door and slam it against the frame, waking us up every time. Our eventual solution was to wedge a blanket under the door, allowing us a semblance of uninterrupted sleep. Yet even with that fix, a new challenge emerged: whenever either of us settled at our desks to work from home, Onion would leap onto our laps, invade our computers, and even resort to non-playful biting if we dared to sit still for too long. Over the past six years, each day has been a lesson in adaptation—a continuous journey of learning to live with a small creature who, like us, evolves in unexpected ways. We disagree on what’s right for her, stress about vet bills (we recently had to get all but one of her teeth removed, and you can imagine the price tag for those tiny teeth), and I admit that owning a pet is far more work than I ever anticipated.

This odyssey of learning to coexist with a pet is not an original experience. The Heirloom, a film that on its surface might seem like a conventional relationship drama teetering on the edge of a breakup, hinges on this very process of adaptation. In The Heirloom, we follow Eric (Ben Petrie), a filmmaker with a quiet yet consuming need for control, and his partner Allie (Grace Glowicki), who seems to navigate life more by instinct and emotion. Their dynamic becomes even more complicated when they decide to adopt a dog—a decision made during the uncertain days of the endless COVID lockdown in Toronto (Toronto had the longest state of emergency in the world, only officially ending after 777 days). Allie’s insistence on getting a pet, contrasted with Eric’s condition that it must be a rescue, introduces Milly, a traumatized whippet from the Dominican Republic, into their already fragile home life.

Milly’s arrival spotlights the fissures in Eric and Allie’s relationship. Eric throws himself into a rigid “pack leader” ideology, embracing a behavioral philosophy centered on control and discipline. His desire to impose structure is not confined solely to pet care—it spills over into every facet of his life, including his creative endeavors and his very sense of self. As he internalizes a harsh, self-critical dialogue—calling himself “bad,” “stupid,” and a “failure”—we see a man who is slowly fracturing under the weight of his own expectations.

Allie, conversely, offers a different kind of response. She retreats into memories and moments, watching old home movies and withdrawing into herself—a quiet, almost resigned counterpoint to Eric’s compulsive need for control. Despite both Petrie and Glowicki playing caricatures of themselves, Allie’s argument that “I need you to know, I’m not a movie,” is the thesis of the film: the struggle to balance the authenticity of lived experience with the desire to control and stage every moment. There’s this ongoing tension between the impulse to orchestrate every detail and the unpredictable nature of life itself.

The production of The Heirloom reinforces this idea of lived-in reality: the visual frame mirrors the emotional claustrophobia of lockdown, a space where there’s little room to breathe both physically and emotionally. And at the same time, this is their true story, yet it’s also a fiction. Here, Ben and Grace transform into Eric and Allie, filming not in their own home but in a rented apartment down the road furnished with their personal belongings, while the real Milly—too skittish to play herself—has been replaced with a dog named Cheers. Even when, halfway through the film, Eric abandons the screenplay (One Little Tickle) he’s been tinkering with for five years to announce, in a highly self-reflexive moment, that he will instead make a movie about Milly, an “heirloom from this beautiful period of time when we became a family,” the truth is that the movie had already begun some time earlier, the second the film The Heirloom started.

Just as Onion has transformed our daily routines, forcing us to rethink everything from sleep to work habits, the evolving dynamics between Eric and Allie reveal how relationships can be upended by the unanticipated and uncontrollable. When Allie pushes to adopt a dog, it is not merely a plea for companionship but a symbolic act of embracing chaos and vulnerability. Eric’s initial resistance, his insistence on a controlled rescue rather than an impulsive acquisition, sets the stage for a deeper exploration of his internal conflicts. His eventual descent into a meticulous, literally cinematic manipulation of their lives—treating everyday moments as scenes to be directed and perfected—raises questions about the line between living authentically and performing a role.

The attempt to blend one’s personal life with a meticulously curated narrative often comes at the expense of genuine connection. It may seem absurd that a couple’s relationship could falter over a rescue dog, yet Milly’s presence exposed the fissures that had long been present. The Heirloom doesn’t resolve its tensions; instead, we’re met with the slow, almost imperceptible retreat of a partner who gradually disengages, much like the anxious and disruptive antics of a pet that stubbornly insists on its own terms of attention. It only took a few days for my cat to learn that she was fed at 6PM every single day, yet somehow each evening that 6PM shifts—sometimes 5:59, sometimes 5:57, or even 5:44—a small disruption in the routine that signals life’s unpredictable nature. Life’s most authentic connections are forged not through rigid control, but by embracing inherent imperfections. The Heirloom challenges us to accept that true intimacy is found in acknowledging life’s messiness, recognizing that control is merely an illusion, and ultimately discovering humor and grace in the unpredictable.

Both my personal journey with my pets and the narrative of The Heirloom speak to a universal experience. Whether you’re in your late twenties contemplating the leap into pet ownership or navigating the evolving landscape of a relationship during unprecedented times, there is a shared understanding that life is not a perfectly scripted film. You can watch other people try and fail to raise a dog, you can watch other long-term relationships fall apart, but you never think those things will happen to you. There are moments of chaos, unexpected adjustments, and bittersweet victories that define our existence. The film’s meta-textual framework—where actors blur the lines between performance and reality—reminds us that sometimes, the most profound moments are those that aren’t planned at all.

In the end, whether it’s the incessant meows of a kitten commandeering my 410-square-foot apartment or the slow, nearly imperceptible shift in a relationship under strain, The Heirloom stands as a testament to the messy, beautiful, and ultimately human experience of living, loving, and learning to let go. Anchored by finely honed performances and a sophisticated script, the film allows its characters to armor themselves against toxicity even as they confront and rehearse their darker emotions and grubby realities with a raw, emotional honesty that cuts through the postmodern play and metacinematic masquerade. For ultimately no matter how staged this drama may be, it finds, in inspecting the intricacies of a new three-member family, both home truths and even signs of gradually improving health.

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