It would have been wonderful to inherit an apartment in Paris’s Marais—a beautiful part of the city with stunning old buildings. Still, my feelings might be different if that inheritance came with a ninety-two year old woman who required €2,400 monthly payments! That's because of the viager, an unusual legal tradition allowing someone to essentially sell and lease back a property, letting them live there and collect rent after selling it. It’s quite ingenious, really. And who could play such a shrewd older woman better than Dame Maggie Smith? Her “Mathilde” is more than prepared for the arrival of the visiting heir, "Mathias/Jim" (Kevin Kline), when he comes to take possession. He's bewildered, that much is certain, and things only deteriorate further when he encounters her daughter, "Chloé" (Kristen Scott-Thomas), who’s absolutely convinced he’s pure evil. Unable to speak French, he's completely reliant on these two women—so he needs to get his bearings quickly or they might end up owning everything he has. The film begins very well indeed, with the three characters interacting amusingly and a quiet threat coming from Dame Maggie while Scott-Thomas exudes a more bitter kind of animosity as Kline spirals from confused to powerless within thirty minutes. However, it then drifts too much toward sentimentality, and that initial energy gets lost in an excess of family drama. It feels increasingly artificial, bordering on melodrama, and the script loses its impact. The cinematography is pleasant, showcasing everyday Paris and its people, and there are moments when watching them argue is genuinely entertaining, but ultimately the film doesn't quite live up to what it could have been.

Source on TMDB