Film review: ‘THE CHRISTOPHERS’ by Nick Gardener from ‘Built For Speed’
This year we’ve seen two iconic American directors create films completely unlike anything else in their back catalogue. We had Jim Jarmusch’s subtle but insightfully human Mother, Father, Sister, Brother which thankfully avoided any of his characteristic attempts at ironic cool and now we have Steven Soderbergh’s very British The Christopher’s which is about as far as we could get from films like Ocean’s 11 or Magic Mike.
The Christophers explores the notion of art as a life affirming but infuriating muse and its impact on relationships and family.
Here Michaela Coel plays struggling artist Lori whose promising career was mysteriously derailed years earlier. Now she offers her services as a restorer when not operating a food van at the local pier. A lucrative opportunity appears one day, when Barnabie (James Cordon) and Sallie (Jessica Gunning) the greedy children of famed reclusive artist Julian Sklar (Sir Ian McKellan) offer to pay Lori to become Sklar’s assistant and surreptitiously complete his famously unfinished works called The Christophers. The unscrupulous kids hope to make a bundle form the paintings when the old man goes. The physically ailing but still razor sharp Julian is, however, savvier than Lori and the money-grubbing children realise.
This is something of a chamber piece as its shot in a few rooms and focuses on speeches and dialogue. Much of the film involves Julian disgorging acerbic insults, pontificating a little like Ethan Hawke’s Lorenz Hart in Blue Moon about his own genius and the decline of everyone else’s artistic integrity or engaging in verbal sparring matches with Lori.
As such, the film provides a platform for some superb lead performances with McKellan spectacularly grumpy, cynical and arrogant as Sklar yet with enough of a twinkle in his eye that he’s still quite likeable and funny. Coel (Mother Mary, Star Wars: the Last Jedi) is wonderfully down to earth and forthright as Lori, always willing to take it up to the cantankerous Julian but also touchingly introspective as she reflects on the wrong turns her life has taken.
While The Christophers’ emphasis on dialogue means it at times resembles a filmed play, Soderbergh has still crafted a distinctive look with this film, particularly in his depiction of Sklar’s cluttered, labyrinthine terrace house.
The film has some issues, however. It often feels as if its skating on the surface of these people’s lives. In his tirades Sklar fixates on his life circumstances but tends to baulk at anything especially painful or insightful. Notably, there’s only brief mention of his bisexuality something that resonates beyond the character with Sir Ian himself having famously come out on TV in 1988. The film also says nothing overt about Lori’s situation as a woman of colour although this is probably implicit in her life situation compared to the privileged wealthy white man Julian. There’s also an issue with a character vital to Sklar’s view of the world who is introduced very late and whose appearance is something of an anti-climax.
While this film could have dug more deeply into the character’s psychology this is still a witty, perceptive and superbly acted study of artists and their attempts to grapple with the confounding forces that drive them.
Nick’s rating: ***1/2
Genre: Drama/ Comedy.
Classification: MA15+.
Director(s): Steven Soderbergh.
Release date: 4th June 2026.
Running time: 101 mins.
Reviewer: Nick Gardener can be heard on “Built For Speed” every Friday night from 8-10pm on 88.3 Southern FM.