THE CHRISTOPHERS is the latest Steven Soderbergh/Ed Solomon collaboration (after the mini-series’ Mosaic and Full Circle and the movie NO SUDDEN MOVE) and it’s another great one. It feels weird to say that it might be the best of them, because it’s so simple in its elements; it revolves around two characters talking in one location. It could definitely work as a play, but it feels much bigger than PRESENCE, Soderbergh’s 2024 limited location movie that could absolutely only work as a movie.
It contains many marks of a Soderbergh movie – the efficient editing, the David Holmes score, the elevation of a really interesting but not-yet-superstar actor, a confidence in the audience being able to figure things out – but it doesn’t feel like a repeat. In a way it’s a caper movie, but not at all like OUT OF SIGHT or an OCEAN’S or LOGAN LUCKY. It’s a serious character drama, but I laughed quite a bit. It’s full of suspense and twists, but I wouldn’t call it a thriller. It’s a story that brings up ideas about art and people, but in ways that aren’t too specific for us to interpret and puzzle over like one of the paintings the movie is about. And if you enjoy the powerhouse acting I came out thinking no one will see this and Ian McKellen will still get nominated. And that Michaela Coel might deserve one in a role that’s more about just reacting to him.
The part that sounds like a crime movie also sounds like the Charles Willeford book turned movie THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY. Lori Butler (Coel, BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER) is an art restorer (also food truck worker) who gets a call from old art school acquaintances Barnaby (James Corden, CATS) and Sallie (Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer). Their father is the famous painter Julian Sklar (McKellen, THE KEEP), who hasn’t worked in years and isn’t long for this world. They want Lori to take a job as his assistant to gain access to his supplies and finish – forge, really – his famously abandoned third series of “Christophers” portraits so they can “find” them in his storage space after he dies and sell them.
They think Lori is uniquely qualified because she once idolized Julian, did a school assignment mimicking his style, and might not mind lying to him because she now has a grudge against him for reasons initially left unsaid. Even without that, though, the job of sitting and listening to him all day and doing what he says would be a gauntlet.
Julian is quite a character – always putting on a show, as fond of his own voice and proclamations as Lorenz Hart in BLUE MOON, with the added element of being a doddering octogenarian. The job interview alone is exhausting. Lori smiles and nods through his meandering monologue, rarely getting to answer a question because he’ll always answer for her, not always correctly. He’s like an old count who lords over this aging castle of a London home filled with a lifetime of trinkets. The form of the story is simple, but its workings are complex. There are multiple games being played between them, many cards being held close to chests, many ways for things to go wrong, also plenty of emotional and artistic stakes to be considered.
I’ve seen other movies with fictional Important Artists, with all their dialogue and clippings dropped to explain famous works, infamous controversies, and enigmatic mysteries. But I think this is new territory to show a fine artist arguably diminished not just by time and lack of inspiration but by participation in modern celebrity culture. When Lori arrives she finds Julian sitting in front of a phone and ring light recording Cameos. This makes more sense when it becomes clear that he gained mass culture fame as a snarky judge on a reality competition show called Art Fight. There are different ways to look at it: he stays busy, pays the bills, brings awareness of his work to a different audience. There are chefs I know are considered brilliant because I used to watch Top Chef. It made him a big deal after his peak, but it’s a fame based on the premise that he’s legit rather than his fans having any actual experience with his art. He trashes the show and its fans, but he’s the one who brought it up. A humblebrag.
There’s an indication that, in the words of Lori in her young, angry art critic days, Julian has been “justifiably cancelled,” but we never learn the seriousness of his transgressions. It could have to do with the reason the Christopher in the paintings is a sore subject, or why she informs him she’s not comfortable with him just wearing a bathrobe before his massage (Weinstein ruined the robe for everybody else, he says). In her opinion at the time he was a formerly progressive artist who started railing against “cancel culture,” a pattern we all recognize. But he’s also just a guy who tries to push buttons and go against the grain to give himself a jolt. I bet he would’ve done it anyway.
Part of the beauty of the Lori character is that as long as these people make assumptions about her she doesn’t work too hard to correct them. Just lets them paint themselves into incorrectness corners. Sometimes she has a snappy retort, sometimes she keeps it to herself. When (spoiler) Julian figures out something’s up it’s a bummer for her financial outlook, but she has no particular loyalty to his kids or even their idea that she could get revenge on him. She tells him everything and tries to walk away, but as circumstances change she keeps adjusting the plan. Whether you take it as entirely playing it by ear or masterfully manipulating them, she does some very impressive scheming. Immaculate, even.
But like I said, it’s not a thriller. I’m a genre guy, but sometimes I have to admit it’s nice to see what could be a thriller melt away and become a story about connecting as humans. I talk about being old but I’m much closer to Lori’s age than Julian’s, and still relate to her position of reckoning with the flaws and failures of our inspirations and heroes, deciding how personally to take it and how much grace they do or don’t deserve from us. Along with everything else, this is a story about young people inspired by their elders and vice versa. In many ways it’s about people and art at the same time. They seem like separate topics, but maybe they’re not.
In some cases Soderbergh shows us paintings we need to understand are considered good. Other times he wisely withholds specifics. Since the movie is mostly made up of conversations between two artists of vastly different status, there are opinionated discussions of criticism, legacies, personas, and motives of artists. When he gets mean Julian attacks her as someone who quit being an artist, but she really didn’t. She still paints, she just stopped doing shows. Meanwhile he’s forever venerated as an artist, but really did stop painting. And part of him is either wise or vulnerable enough to recognize and be jealous of what she has that he doesn’t.
Lori has an eye for the personal meaning of the Christophers, down to the emotions unintentionally captured in the brushwork, and the specific biographical incidents that inspired them. But Julian’s kids discuss them only as a commodity. The art itself isn’t very relevant, it’s the canvas, the fiber of the brushes, the traces of Julian’s DNA that can be detected to authenticate the work.
To a certain extent they might be right. It’s easy to imagine people imbuing meaning into Lori’s fakes as long as they believe they were Julian’s. On the other hand, there’s a great reveal that they only came up with the Lori plan after trying to fake a painting themselves. Not so easy, it turns out.
I thought that this seemed like it could’ve been written as a showcase for McKellen, and that the real feat was relative newcomer Coel being able to hold her own with him. Then I read that Solomon took the risk of writing it specifically for those actors because Soderbergh told him he had them in mind. It was an incredible call. Soderbergh is clearly fascinated by Coel’s distinct features – cinematographer “Peter Andrews” introduces her from an angle where her cheekbones can be seen from the back – but that’s pretty much extra credit. There’s a real skill to holding the screen while listening and reacting to Ian McKellan going to town reminding us how much we love Ian McKellan.
Well, here I am again. This happened with NO SUDDEN MOVE. I don’t know how many of my friends will ever watch this, but I’ll keep telling them it’s good.
Additional notes:
1. I was thinking Corden was in LOGAN LUCKY and that it would be kinda cool if he was the same character, but actually Corden was in the non-Soderbergh OCEAN’S 8, it was Seth McFarlane I was thinking of in LOGAN LUCKY.
2. I’m gonna try not to put too much faith in this actually happening, but it was recently announced that Coel, who created and starred in the show I May Destroy You, is writing and directing a reimagining of BLOODSPORT for A24!? I don’t know what that looks like but if it happens I will be there.
p.s.
Other Ed Solomon joints I’ve reviewed:
BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE / BILL & TED’S BOGUS JOURNEY
LEAVING NORMAL
MOM AND DAD SAVE THE WORLD
SUPER MARIO BROS.
NO SUDDEN MOVE
