Movie Review: Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel Form An Unlikely Artistic Bond In Steven Soderbergh’s Quietly Brilliant ‘The Christophers’
10/12 ForReel Score | 4.5/5 Stars
Recently, Steven Soderbergh said that he intends to use “a lot of AI” in his upcoming film about the Spanish American War. A perplexing and depressing comment from one of our most crafty and prolific independent filmmakers who often weaves a brilliant story out of the bare essentials. Case in point, The Christophers, an intimate and quietly beautiful chamber piece in which Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel spend most of the runtime bickering about paintings. Ed Solomon’s screenplay examines the “art” of forgery. Can someone who is capable of copying someone’s artistic style by hand truly capture their essence and intention? Surely if this question causes so much anguish between two human beings, computers should be out of the question.
We meet starving artist Lori Butler (Coel) as she receives a call from a long lost college friend during her shift on a food truck. Sallie Sklar (Jessica Gunning) and her brother Barnaby (James Corden) want to hire her to commit an impossible seeming art crime. She is tasked with infiltrating the home of their father, world famous if somewhat disgraced painter Julian (McKellen) as his assistant. In the upper levels of his bizarre and sad 4 story home, there is a group of unfinished paintings that are part of a series called “The Christophers,” portraits of Julian’s former muse and lover who has long since moved on. The goal is for Lori to take them home, forge completed copies, and put them back in Julian’s home so that the kids can “inherit” and sell them once he passes from a terminal illness. This becomes harder than expected for Lori once her initially thorny dynamic with Julian gives way into an unlikely friendship capable of healing both of their personal scars.
It’s fascinating that Michaela Coel chose both The Christophers and Mother Mary as her first two leading roles in film. Both involve her squaring off with a much more established actor for lengthy and fraught sequences of dialogue inside a decaying house. However, while Mother Mary had the vibe of an off-Broadway blackbox show that would play to a half full audience, Christophers is a polished all-star affair that you’d find on London’s West End if you could score a ticket. Her chemistry with Ian McKellen is remarkable. It’s not a pairing I would’ve ever imagined, but they match each other’s dry wit bar for bar. It is clear that they are having a blast together while learning from each other. Lori is pretty unflappable as a character but there are several moments where McKellen delivers an out of pocket comedic line so masterfully that Coel can’t help but almost laugh.
Julian could’ve easily been insufferable. He’s a cantankerous and petty old man who is drowning in self pity. He quit painting after he couldn’t finish the Christophers, instead opting to be a catty reality show judge before getting cancelled for an undisclosed reason. He makes it pretty easy for us to fill in the blanks. Yet, McKellen has such a deep and inherent warmth. It is impossible to not see the sadness in Julian. He pushes people away because he is so completely apathetic towards forming a personal connection in a period of life where he only interacts with his parasite children. It’s a brilliant, deeply moving late career performance that should be considered for awards. Lori throws Julian for a loop early on by being quite clear with her professional boundaries. She has no problem telling him off even if she becomes morbidly (at first) fascinated by his lifestyle. Even so, she’s not a good liar. Solomon & Soderbergh make the efficient choice to have Lori’s deception come to light early on. The two quickly bond over how stupid Julian’s kids are and from there get to spend the rest of the film exploring a far deeper and more compelling bond. Coel potently but subtly maps Lori’s emotional transition into genuine care. She never gives up on pushing back against Julian’s antics but she eventually comes to entirely understand them.
The Christophers is so impeccably cast that even James Corden can’t clog the works. He and Jessica Gunning are hilarious as Julian’s slimy offspring. They don’t overact. We see that underneath they are just two people who eternally lash out at a father who never grew to like them, let alone love them. We cannot help but join Julian in hating them, though. They’re just such easy targets.
This isn’t a particularly flashy story, so Soderbergh has to innovate in more invisible ways. Most notably, he and his location scouts picked an incredible home to stage the action in. It is multiple stories tall but the actual hallways and rooms are claustrophobically thin and cluttered from Julian’s neglect. Soderbergh’s camera placements often make us feel as though we’re a third person awkwardly trying to find a place in the room while not interrupting whatever conversation Julian and Lori are having. Solomon’s impeccable screenplay does the rest of the work. It might be too chatty for some but it never descends into being pretentious or obtuse. It just gives these two brilliant actors the room to flesh out these characters whose close bond feels impossible in act one.
If this truly is Soderbergh’s final pre-AI film, he went out on a note that shows just how much he doesn’t need it. The Christophers is effortlessly crafted. It is the work of a seasoned filmmaker who can deliver something electric with one hand tied behind his back. Any films he makes using newfangled technical cheats will likely wind up feeling like the unfinished Christopher paintings. Outlines of beauty without the inspiration to be completed with the care they deserve.