Director: Suzanne Raes

Sympathy for inheritance taxpayers in this handsomely rendered documentary profile of a trio of siblings as they prepare to sell their late mother’s grand but shabby pile, Cumnor Place in Oxfordshire. The house was acquired, it is revealed, after the discovery and sale of a small picture of St George slaying the dragon, which turned out to be very valuable. Harriet, an artist and the sole daughter is the first sibling we meet. Sensitive and mildly eccentric, she is clearly the most affected by the experience as she goes through her late mother’s collection of artefacts and mementos. Her elder brothers, Edward and Lawrence are more sanguine and eager to move on, as does Harriet’s young nephew, Orlando, who wisely points out that it’s not just material possessions that define our memories of a person. Inevitably, family trauma is unearthed during the clear-out too, with tales of neglect and favouritism, particularly toward the male siblings. Audience enjoyment will depend on how much they are able to identify with the well-to-do Impeys; and whether they concur with the family’s insistence that theirs is a story worth telling – after all, tales of distant posh parents are not exactly rare. The use of dragons as a metaphor for the monsters that lurk in every family history feels a little overwrought, but the handsomely rendered dusty, cobwebbed sun-dappled nooks and crannies, by cinematographer Victor Horstink, are suitably elegiac, and there are genuine moments of bitter insight and family drama.

David Willoughby

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