“The Christophers” Review
Director: Steven Soderbergh Screenwriter: Ed Solomon Cast: Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, James Corden, Jessica Gunning Distributor: Neon Running Time: 100 min. MPAA: R
Watching the chemistry between Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel in The Christophers is akin to watching two battered ships weathering the stormy waters of art. Devoted to painting, they’ve come to recognize the worst parts of the world they occupy with canvas and paint, cheapened by a world that no longer gives a shit. The questioning of what makes good art has been buried in the brushstrokes of red letters that read, “How much can I get for this?” A collaboration is presented not as the next hot artwork to grace the most stylish of museums, but as an opportunity to feel something beyond the next overvalued reproduction.
The cantankerous nature of Ian McKellen’s Julian Sklar becomes an intriguing figure as an artist whose fame has flickered in the 21st century. Once a well-regarded painter known for an iconic series of paintings, he now stews in his aged studio with a ring light and camera, filming purchased cameos for aspiring artists. He knows he’s become a pathetic shell of his former self and would rather keep his remaining art locked up for his own satisfaction. An old wound resides in his collection of works: his unfinished Christopher series, based on a past lover.
Aiming to open that wound and sell off those unreleased paintings are his conspiring children, played by James Corden and Jessica Gunning. Having burned the bridge to negotiations, they instead hire the struggling artist Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) to pose as Julian’s assistant and secretly find and complete the last of the Christopher paintings. Lori seems like a good spy not just because of her desperate need for cash, but also because of her collected and quiet nature. She doesn’t question Julian much as she enters his multi-story, messy habitat of art, letting the aged artist prattle on about his perceptions of art, his worsening health, and his dusty views on cancel culture. While Julian might be old and dying, he’s still intelligent enough to suspect that Lori is working for the greedy enemy of his life’s work. And once the game becomes obvious, the greater conversation can be had between the generations of those who speak best through a brush.
Director Steven Soderbergh, working from a script by returning screenwriter Ed Solomon (No Sudden Move), crafts an offbeat comedy that is lean on exposition, bound more by emotion than by it. There’s not a moment where a drunk Julian dumps a bucket of his past regrets onto the floor, nor is there a scene of Lori’s frustrations exploding about her financial stresses programmed by the flawed generation before her. Those internal struggles don’t need to be revealed on the surface, given that the emotional barriers keep these two artists guarded. Shirking what could’ve been a tale of mere art forgery, the film machetes through all the poetics to reach the gritty honesty of art’s value and intent beyond a dollar or a pound.
McKellen’s performance is magnificent for how he progressively pulls back the layers of a harsh critic who still has some bite left in him. He playfully mocks his money-hungry offspring and is just curious enough to see how long Lori will endure his scathing, invasive line of dialogue. His engaging words play well with Coel’s resilient calm, given how much harshness she has endured throughout her artistic career. She endures Julian’s probing of polecules and his unprofessional attire around his house in hopes of finding either a way to make ends meet or a spark of artistic flair. Her solid stance soon leads her to find both through a mixture of deception, honesty, and stern deal-making. Through it all, she is persistently challenged by the remaining days of Julian’s artistic intent, in which he constantly questions his own perceptions of good and bad art, and even the most sympathetic of artists can’t offer a resolution. Not that he’d accept it, anyway, considering his revealed history had him once being recognized as the Simon Cowell of the art world. Watching that ego crumble is both sad and satisfying, making the audience feel more like Lori from a distance and questioning how far we might fall at such an age.
Soderbergh’s microcosm of an artist’s legacy breathes with such invigorating life for a film that mostly centers on an old man’s home/studio, likely caked with the smell of old paint. There isn’t so much a presence of a failing career as there is one last salvo of the spicy, aiming to stab with a tongue as pointed as a fine pen. The Christophers bring out the very life force of art’s appeal, never getting bogged down in the details or technicalities. That thirst for finding any means of satisfaction before our canvas erodes drives this story into some cruel yet humanistic conversations, where McKellen and Coel’s performances become true works of art.
