First impressions of The Christophers

I highly recommend that you get to a theater to see The Christophers before it’s gone. Let me consider which sales pitch will work best.

What if I tell you that this is directed by the great Steven Soderbergh, and I think it’s as strong as any movie he’s made in the last 25 years?

Are you hooked? No?

Perhaps the premise will be better bait: The Christophers is a film about a famous painter who doesn’t realize that his new assistant has been recruited by his own greedy children to quietly commit a crime. Lori Butler, an art restorer, has been instructed by the son and daughter of art legend Julian Sklar to find and complete, behind the artist’s back, several of his unfinished masterpieces so that when he dies, the heirs to his estate will make a fortune. Sound intriguing?

What if I tell you that Julian Sklar is played by the legendary Ian McKellen, that the role was written perfectly for him, and that this just might be the best big-screen role he’s ever had? (And yes, I do remember The Lord of the Rings, thank you.)

And what if I tell you that Michaela Coel, who plays Lori, is a perfect onscreen match for McKellen, somehow commanding our attention even though Julian rarely gives Lori an opportunity to speak?

If that’s not enough to pique your interest, let me try one more thing: Imagine that the poster for this movie, showing McKellen and Coel in a sort of staring contest that promises a drama of particular intensity, has these words in bold print across the top: FROM THE WRITER WHO TOOK US ON BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE. Or, perhaps, FROM THE MIND WHO INTRODUCED US TO THE MEN IN BLACK.

I hope that I have your attention now.

I’m not sure what I’d consider the most surprising aspect of this fantastically entertaining and thought-provoking film. But even though it comes from one of the most accomplished and consistently impressive filmmakers working today, even though it stars this dynamic duo, and even though it draws us into an unpredictable and compelling drama, I’d argue that the most remarkable detail of all is that Ed Solomon gets the screenwriting credit here. More than 40 years after he was a writer on the TV show Laverne & Shirley, and 36 years after he wrote dialogue for newcomers Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, he proves with this, at last, that he can write an Oscar-caliber drama.

I’m almost certain that Solomon was the first feature film director that I ever interviewed in person. That was almost 23 years ago now. (You can read my account of that 2003 conversation here.) He was in Seattle meeting with journalists to talk about his directorial debut — Levity. I remember being impressed with some aspects of that film — particularly the three leads: rising star Billy Bob Thornton and legends Holly Hunter, Morgan Freeman, and Kirsten Dunst. And I remember that the film’s title seemed unintentionally ironic given the film’s proclivity for pathos. But then, it was also clear that Solomon was in the mood to try new things. Levity was a leap for him in not just into the director’s chari; it was a jump into another genre.

Whatever the case, I enjoyed the conversation and found Solomon to be earnest and empathetic, a storyteller who wanted to row out into deeper waters. And since then, while he has given moviegoers many more comedies (including Charlie's Angels, Now You See Me and its first sequel, and the recent reunion of Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted Face the Music), he’s shown he’s got more tricks up his sleeve. He wrote the excellent No Sudden Move for Soderbergh in 2021. And now he’s found his way back to a film that has some strong thematic resonance with Levity. This time, with Soderbergh back at the helm, he’s given us a drama that really resonates.

And, as it’s about artists wrestling with questions about vision, authenticity, the nature of criticism, and the dangers of the marketplace, well — it’s my kind of movie.

And yes, I meant it when I said that Solomon and Soderbergh have given the great Ian McKellen what may be the best exhibition of his talents we’ve seen on a big screen. McKellen has already shown he can make us believe in a mysterious wizard. But here, he makes us believe in, and eventually come to love, a magnificent, cantankerous, and often intolerable human being. Painter Julian Sklar is sardonic in his assessment of his own career, hilarious in his relentless rants, haughty in his scorn for other artists, and deeply, deeply hurt by events from the distant past that he’d rather not talk about.

Sklar, you see, was an innovative painter until he started selling his celebrity instead of his art. He eventually took on a Simon Cowell-ish role on a reality show in which young, aspiring artists would bare both their art and their hearts for his appraisal, and he would eviscerate them, ranting about their incompetence, in love with the sound of his own flamboyant take-downs.

The Christophers opens with Sklar’s son and daughter (James Corden and Jessica Gunning), for whom he has a long list of derogatory names — names they live up to — persuading Lori, who has experience in art restoration, to help them pull of a lucrative scam. If Lori can find Sklar’s series of unfinished portraits known as “the Christophers,” and finish them herself by imitating the style of Sklar’s best work, then they can sell them for a fortune when he finally throws down one insult too many and God runs out of patience with him. Like the con artists in Ocean’s 11, but without any of the charm, they’ll get rich at the expense of someone that nobody can stand. Why not exploit the old terror once he’s gone, given how cruelly he exploited the young and the vulnerable for his own fame and paychecks?

Lori doesn’t like the sound of this. But something about the plan intrigues her, and she cannot resist going forward with it. We’ll learn later that she has her own reasons for getting involved. I’ll let you discover that for yourself. Suffice it to say that she finds Old Sklar hunkered down in front of a laptop, making easy cash with curmudgeonly Cameo-style videos, ranting for fans willing to pay for it. He clearly needs an assistant, as he can’t even make himself breakfast. (There’s an exchange here that sounds like a nod to the Schitt's Creek ‘Fold It In’ Scene.) He thinks that Lori’s just the latest in a long line of pathetic wannabes willing to work for him in the hopes of advancing their careers. He finds, however, that he has met a mind that just might be his match. At first, he’s just glad to have someone to perform menial tasks while he pummels her with monologues, opinions, complaints, and put-downs. Like Muhammed Ali taking punches until his opponent runs out of energy, Lori is willing to listen. And listen. And listen. She listens until Julian wears himself out with his rage and his bitterness and starts to notice that she’s still standing there, still paying attention, and that she might actually have something interesting to say back to him.

It’s easy for Lori to conceal her intentions. Julian never asks questions, or when he does he doesn’t stop talking to get an answer. But the more Lori listens, the more clearly she sees the depravity of her quest. And the more that Lori lets him speak, the more Sklar begins to hear himself. He begins to discern the difference between the bitter truths he so eloquently monologues about and the insidious lies he has repeated so often that he’s come to believe them.

Unfolding in Julian's townhouse apartments — yes, he has two adjoining and interconnected townhouses that represent his not-so-private past life as an artist and his present focused on making a product of himself for the public — their rocky relationship becomes one of the year’s most savory and rewarding big-screen joys.

The Christophers invites us to wrestle with questions about what art really is; where art comes from; who art is for; why nobody — not the artist, not the audience, not the critics — has the final word on what a work of art means; and why money almost always complicates and corrupts artists and the experience of art. To name just a few. (You know the scene in Three Colors: Blue when Julie takes the priceless sheet music of her husband’s unfinished compositions and throws them into the massive fanged jaws of a garbage truck? If you love art so much that that scene made you stand up and cry out, this movie is likely to mess you up.) By its stirring conclusion, The Christophers earns its place on my short list of great discussion-starter films on the subject of art.

And I’m so grateful that Solomon wrote these parts for McKellen and Coel, and that Soderbergh stepped in to direct them. It’s a joy to see McKellen give us another great performance outside of the Tolkien adaptations, something to remind us that he was one of the all-time greats before Peter Jackson ever invited him to Middle-Earth.

And I doubt I’ll be more excited about another actor at the end of 2026 than I am right now about Michaela Coel.