A Steven Soderbergh portrait with my name on it.
That would be two years in a row that Steven Soderbergh has made a movie set in London and has the right kind of style and star appeal. Last year’s entry was “Black Bag” with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender, and this year’s is “The Christophers,” which stars me. Just kidding. It stars Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel (“I May Destroy You,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”), James Corden, and Jessica Gunning (“Pride”).
The world of art has its own kind of passion. There can be crossroads, there can be insanity, there can be temptation, and there can be a lot of things. I may not be an artist, but I know great paintings when I see them and I know when to read between the lines. “The Christophers” is an example of an artist at the twilight of his career and the other artist knows a lot about him.
Coel plays a young artist and food truck driver named Lori Butler, who finds herself with a big deal. She’s asked by Barnaby (Corden) and Sallie (Gunning), the estranged children of the famous artist Julian Skylar (McKellen), to finish some of his work so they can sell them. That would be their inheritance, considering that their dad is unloving and they themselves are greedy. These unfinished and never before seen paintings are known as “The Christophers,” a few series of a man he may have fallen in love with, and he refuses to finish them.
To take care of the art, she must score an interview with the old man as his assistant, which she passes. At this point, through his loud and outspoken passion, he wants Lori to destroy the Christophers and show him the evidence, which is why she must forge some copies and destroy them. But when the plot gets revealed to him, things take a new direction, one that involves sabotage and deeper understanding of the artist and his work.
“The Christophers” is Soderbergh’s first collaboration with writer Ed Solomon since “No Sudden Move,” and it takes real patience to see where this art movie is heading into. Sometimes it uses big words, and other times, it delivers with authentic dialogue and character development. It’s a caper, but not in the breezy fashion. It’s more in the examination fashion where the young artist is able to see the older artist. You have to give McKellen and Coel credit for taking on such a unique character study, as they share their different aspects of their realities. And without leaving any dead giveaways to their greed, Corden and Gunning deliver with low key and highly valued statuses.
Now, I’ve seen some entertaining art movies in the independent circuit, which have their own low key standards: “The Mastermind,” the story of a bad art thief, “Exhibiting Forgiveness, ” the story of an artist and his junkie father, and “Love, Brooklyn,” the story of an artist trying to figure out himself. And now, “The Christophers” likes to do its own angle on art and money. It doesn’t settle for easy story formulas, but uses the right brush strokes to bring out the best and worst of the characters.
To find out who made The Christophers-and I mean the paintings, I came across an article at Artnet and found out that the film’s production designer Antonia Lowe and painter Barnaby Gordon. And both of them chose to focus more on the faces and less on the backgrounds. As Lowe said in the article: “It was to be quite plain, so that the full focus would be on the face rather than anything else to get that sense of intimacy.” Now, Soderbergh knows fresh artists when he sees them.
How the estranged family handles the outcome of greed and bad parenting are handled with less FUs and more poetry and whimsey. And how the girl ends up in the center of them is fun all along the way.
