Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, Jessica Gunning, James Corden
Since coming out of his brief self-imposed "retirement" in 2017, Steven Soderbergh has been knocking out films at a rate close to two a year. He's clearly a filmmaker who cares about his legacy, but an artist doesn't get to determine their legacy. That's up to the public. Some will consider Soderbergh an unimpeachable genius. A few will label him a talentless hack. I suspect most will look back on his prolific filmography as a series of hits and misses. The Christophers, which is very much wrestling with the notion of legacy, is one of the hits.
The latest in a run of UK-set movies from Soderbergh, The Christophers stars Ian McKellen as Julian Sklar, a once revered painter who is now best known to the British public for playing the Simon Cowell role in a crass competitive reality TV show called "Art Fight," where he destroyed the hopes and dreams of budding young artists with his cruel and cutting quips. Now making a living recording Cameo-esque video greetings, Sklar hasn't produced any notable paintings in over 30 years. Around that time he began work on a series of portraits known as "The Christophers," but they have languished unfinished since, locked away on the unused third floor of his messy but sprawling London townhouse.
Julian's estranged children - Barnaby (James Corden) and Sallie (Jessica Gunning) - have devised a cunning plan to increase the worth of their forthcoming inheritance. They hire Sallie's old art school classmate Lori (Michaela Coel), a talented but unseen artist who has previously dabbled in forgery, to pose as Julian's assistant, get her hands on the Christophers and complete them herself in Julian's style. Barnaby and Sallie will then flog them for expected millions.
The core of The Christophers plays out as a two-hander between Julian and Lori in the former's townhouse. Lori has a dislike of Julian the man due to some ambiguously referenced past encounter, of which Julian appears to have no recollection. But she still holds a fascination and respect for Julian the artist. Coel's expressive eyes do a lot of work in detailing this contradiction in Lori, whose eyes close and roll as he blabbers on about the faults of her generation and rails against cancel culture, but which open in awe like a blossoming flower when she finally gets a look at the unfinished Christophers.
You might think you've seen this movie before, the one where the cantankerous old git and his young assistant have an initially abrasive relationship that eventually gives way to friendship. Soderbergh's film, from a script by Ed Solomon, is far more complicated and nuanced than all that. The relationship between Julian and Lori is less about what they can give each other and more concerned with how they can use each other. Julian isn't quite the old dodder Lori and his kids have taken him for, so he rumbles their scheme early on. A decision must then be made on his part: does he allow Lori to forge his work and in doing so, perhaps revive his status and secure his legacy? Or does he give in to pettiness and purposely ruin the Christophers, either by outright destroying them or rendering them with all the artistic flourish of a dogs playing poker picture? For Lori the art appreciator, a similar dilemma arises. Does she allow Julian, the man she dislikes, to sabotage his legacy, or does she protect his art and his reputation, even if it means forging it herself?
The film thus raises the question of whether a forgery is okay if it's good enough to fool the public, and if one artist can ever truly appropriate the work of another. I couldn't help but think of AI, both the movie that saw Spielberg complete an unrealised Kubrick project, and the now very real existence of Artificial Intelligence. Soderbergh has recently expressed his support for the latter, which leaves something of a sour taste when you think about what he might be saying with this movie.
But even if Soderbergh doesn't realise it himself, a computer could never make The Christophers. For one, no combination of ones and zeroes could come up with something close to McKellen's performance here. Approaching 90, the English screen great is as lively in his own way as ever, and while he may spend most of his performance seated, he's so energetic a screen presence that you can almost see his co-stars sweating as they try to keep up. He forms a enthralling double act with Coel, with McKellen given the showy role of the motormouth while Coel gives a great reactive performance. Soderbergh finds clever ways to ensure we see both actors' faces in the same shot, his camera delicately dancing around Julian's cramped apartment, which is itself a great piece of production design that tells us as much about the fading artist as Norma Desmond's messy home in Sunset Boulevard. The Christophers is the product of a lot of humans working at the top of their game.
The Christophers is in UK/ROI cinemas from May 15th.
