‘The Christophers’ Review

With a momentous performance from the great Ian McKellan, Steven Soderbergh’s ‘The Christophers’ is a charming comedic drama with big questions about the relationships between artists and their loved ones, their critics, and their audience, and what, if anything, they owe to each other. While these themes are never fully developed, and the tone swings jarringly depending on which performer is onscreen, ‘The Christophers’ still serves up small scale delights in abundance.

‘The Christophers’ opens with Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), a self professed artist, critic and restorer who works at a food truck to get by. Lori receives a call from an old classmate, Sallie (Jessica Gunning) who, along with her brother Barnaby (James Corden), has devised a scheme in which Lori takes a position as assistant to their famed artist father, Julian Sklar (Ian McKellan), and complete, meaning forge, some of his long forgotten works in the attic in the hopes of fetching millions at auction once he passes away.

Lori takes the conniving siblings up on the offer for reasons both financial and personal, and finds herself in the employ of the difficult, overbearing, yet nonetheless charming Julian, whose pompous monologuing about his own legacy and the weaknesses of lesser artists belies a crippling self doubt as to how time has passed him by, and if he will be remembered at all in the years to come.

As Julian Sklar, a titan of the arts reckoning with his own mortality, Ian McKellan delivers an astounding performance. From his first appearance on screen, McKellan talks and talks and talks, blustering his way through an initial interview, asking questions but allowing no room for answers, obsessed as he is with his own voice. McKellan portrays Julian with fading vitality, gravitas, humor, sensitivity, and an ego both frustratingly oppressive and heartbreakingly delicate as he confronts his deeply held fears of cultural and individual inadequacy.

Unfortunately, the rest of the cast pales in comparison to McKellan’s bravura, seeming instead as if they are all acting in different movies, a fault which must necessarily lie with the direction of Steven Soderbergh, who seems unable or unwilling to commit to a single tone. James Corden and Jessica Gunning offer only the broadest of comedy, out of place with the otherwise intimate human drama.

Michaela Coel’s character and performance are emblematic of a narrative and thematic tension that works to the film’s detriment. On the one hand, there are meditations around art and the artist, authorship and its relevance to impact and legacy. These ideas may be underbaked, but they are best realized in Coel’s enigmatic and unreadable performance as a character whose main artistic forays are copying or expanding others’ work, thus making her a blank canvas who reflects back upon others their good and bad. But on the other hand, there is a more crowd-pleasing story of a curmudgeonly old artist finding renewed purpose and unlikely companionship when a young artist enters his life. Coel’s performance exists in the former version of this movie, but the character exists in the latter, resulting in a cold and distant effect in moments that should otherwise be heartwarming or devastating.

In the end, ‘The Christophers’ tonal inconsistency is but a minor nitpick in a film that refuses to overstay its welcome, breezing through a simple yet deceptively nuanced story of how art makes and breaks the lives of artists, and how their search for meaning stretches far beyond the limits of their canvas.

The Christophers
Rated R for language.
Running Time: 1 hour and 40 minutes

Director Steven Soderbergh
Writers Ed Solomon
Stars Ian McKellan, Michaela Coel, James Corden, Jessica Gunning
Rating R
Running Time 100 Minutes
Genres Comedy, Drama