I would not have guessed that Steven Soderberg directed "The Christophers," but I'm not surprised that he did. This is a small, playful, twisty film about two stubborn people who are smarter than they're letting on, and that's right up his alley. There has been a certain showy experimentation with Soderberg's recent films, like "Presence" and "Black Bag," where the visual style makes itself very apparent. Here the camera is much more subdued, and in service of an excellent original script from Ed Solomon.
Michaela Coel and Ian McKellan play a pair of artists, Lori Butler and Julian Sklar. Sklar is a famous, aging painter who is decades past his prime, but still celebrated, especially for two series of portraits of a male lover he completed in the '90s, known as The Christophers. Spurred by one of these paintings selling for millions at auction, Sklar's unscrupulous adult children, Sallie (Jessica Gunning) and Barnaby (James Corden) hatch a scheme to have Sklar's unfinished and abandoned third series of Christophers completed by a forger, so they can be sold after Sklar's death. They turn to Sallie's old art school classmate Lori Butler, now an art restorer, who is intrigued by the challenge, and comes to work for Sklar under the pretense of being a new assistant, so she can access his abandoned work and materials.
"The Christophers" is largely a two-hander where Sklar and Butler debate art and authorship, while gradually revealing more and more about themselves. This is the best performance I've seen from McKellan in a very long time. Julian Sklar is a complex, wonderfully talkative old rascal, who is dealing with a lot of regrets and unfinished business as the end of his life approaches. He's introduced in a fantastic scene where Butler is starting her first day in his employ, and he barely lets her get a word in edgewise as he regales her with a torrent of commentary about life, art, the artistic establishment, and records a Cameo message for a fan too. He's elderly, but still sharp, witty, and technologically proficient. However, soon enough Butler starts talking back, lobbing back her own opinions and observations about Sklar, his work, and his career. Coel does a lot with long silences, and her character is the one who withholds more information that has to be sussed out a little at a time. The two are very well matched, and wonderful to listen to as they match wits and inevitably become fond of one another. I initially assumed "The Christophers" was based on a stage play, given the limited cast and settings.
I appreciate that the film deals seriously with its themes, discussing major issues in the art world related to who can claim credit for a painting, how the financial stakes affect the art, and the price of fame. Sklar rails against art schools and art critics, but can quote every review he's gotten. He disdains the people who buy his paintings, but seems to take every opportunity to monetize his dimming celebrity. His personal life is a shambles, but it's also not hard to see where the terrible Sklar children learned their bad behavior from. As for the forgery scheme, it's not a black and white situation. The film rightly points out that everyone stands to gain from her deception, including the artist, depending how Butler plays it. This isn't a film for those who have to be convinced that the fine arts have value - that's a given. It's a film for those who know not to root for Sklar or Butler, but for the artwork itself.
"The Christophers" is a small film, and I fear it will be easily overlooked when awards season rolls around. And since Stever Soderbergh is such a prolific filmmaker, there's a danger that those familiar with his work might be tempted to skip it, assuming it's another in his ever-growing collection of offbeat formal experiments and small scale genre exercises. "The Christophers" is neither. It is a refreshingly earnest and heartfelt film about art and artists that has a lot on its mind. And at the time of writing, it's my favorite film of the year to date.
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