The Christophers is the new film from prolific master film-maker Steven Soderbergh, with a screenplay by Ed Solomon. The film stars Sir Ian McKellen as Julian Sklar, an elderly artist, who had an impressive creative period decades earlier, painting his lover Christopher, and has done little since, becoming a shambling, bitter parody of himself. Michaela Coel plays Lori Butler, a talented artist who will not display her work due to a past trauma, and who is hired by Sklar’s adult children to become his assistant, but, more important, also to surreptitiously uncover a series of incomplete Christophers and to forge their completion, so that they can be sold for millions when Sklar dies.

Soderbergh is a great director, who has developed an economy of style in his later years that he seems able to fit any project. His contribution here seems to be to recognise that The Christophers is a writer’s and an actor’s piece. The film is excellently made, the scenes – delicate, emotional, dramatic – are perfectly paced, yet the work is so subtle that one doesn’t think about camera shots, movement, or edits at all. I mean that as a complement. The director serves the story and the performances perfectly, and so disappears.

So, let’s talk about the writing and acting. The Christophers is a film rich with layers. On the surface, it could be seen as a satire on the art world and the industry that surrounds it. Does it really matter who paints the lost Christophers? It’s the name and the provenance that matter. Not the quality. But the film is more than that. The Christophers is a dialogue between the young and the old – Lori and Sklar – between the past and present, between who we were, who we are, and who we wanted to be. Lori once hero-worshipped Sklar, then he grew old and became an object of derision. She’s there to help his kids squeeze some money out of him once he’s gone, and yet her youth, her energy, offers the chance for him to be re-ignited, which in turn could help her heal an old scar. The unfinished Christophers, then, offer both Sklar and Lori a chance to go back to a time before happiness and hope had fully drained away and literally remake it for today. The film is about two people trying to jump in the same stream twice, as the old saying goes, and emerge renewed. If that all sounds a bit heavy, it isn’t. The Christophers is a very enjoyable film, and functions as a kind of suspense story, with a touch of mystery: will Lori forge The Christophers? Will Sklar paint again? And who the heck is Christopher anyway?

McKellen has never been better (I can almost hear the Lord of the Rings fans gasp from here.) It would have been very easy for this fine actor to play Sklar for the gallery, larger than life, a delightful buzzard still full of vinegar. Indeed, the juicy material on the page must have been begging for him to do just that. Instead, McKellen shows excellent judgement and leans into Sklar’s vulnerability. His bitter diatribes are rambling and sad rather than funny. His playfully inappropriate banter with Lori, pathetic rather than provocative. Sklar may once have been an enfant terrible of the art world, but all that’s gone. Time has moved on and eaten him up, and all that’s left of him is the pose, which lacks confidence. McKellen manages to convey all of this with a wispy, broken voice, a demeanour that seems like a competition between impishness and exhaustion, and an expression on his face that struggles to be pugnacious, but just looks lost. In McKellen’s most seasoned hands Sklar becomes a very human monster and attains a desperate level of pathos that it is hard not to feel for. Frankly, Sir Ian deserves an Oscar.

Michaela Coel as Lori is almost equally excellent, and is the perfect foil. She is cool personified. Her chiselled features, although barely moving, wear a look of controlled ferocity, an intelligence always appraising, while her lips curl slightly in amused disdain. And yet there’s vulnerability too, which breaks through in a memorable scene late on. Is her calculating front nothing but a shield to protect her sensitive artistic soul, much like Sklar’s continual posturing? Watch the film and make up your own mind. Either way, she holds her own in the less showy of the main parts and anchors the film. Oh yes, and James Corden also makes an appearance as Sklar’s son – but don’t let that put you off, he isn’t in it much.

The Christophers is a fascinating film from Steven Soderbergh and writer Ed Solomon about the power of art to transport us back to who we once were, or at least dreamed of being. It’s also a suspenseful piece of entertainment and a brilliant showcase for McKellen.

The Christophers is now playing in cinemas across the UK.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us

Save