moviE review: The christophers

Michaela Cole and Ian McKellen in Steven Soderbergh's 'The Christophers'

​Movie Review: The Christophers (Steven Soderbergh, 2025)

Steven Soderbergh returns to London after his recent spy caper Black Bag, although here the city recedes into the background, the scope being much more personal. Whereas Black Bag reveled in its Guy Ritchie-adjacent high jinx, The Christophers is a more delicate, intimate proposition.

The film is held together by two very different, complementary performances. Ian McKellen is Julian Sklar, an aging artist who was lauded in his heyday, but who has darkened his name with misanthropic behaviour that became his trademark. Lori (Michaela Coel) is a younger art restorer currently employed at a food truck. 

Sklar is entering his final years, beset by ill health and bouncing around his crumbing townhouse. His two children (so one-dimensional that they could have been played by anyone, but are Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning and, I’m so sorry to report, James Corden) have an eye on their inheritance, including some potentially valuable unfinished works from a series dedicated to Sklar senior’s old love: works collectively called The Christophers. 

The works have gained a near-mythical reputation in the art world. Sklar’s daughter - who formerly went to art school with Lori - concocts a scheme for Lori to become Julian’s new assistant. She would then have access to the unfinished paintings and could finish them herself for a cut of the inheritance. Lori tentatively agrees and is installed in the chaotic Sklar household. 

What follows is a touching two-hander; a talkative, play-like film that examines artistic life, what ownership of artworks or what ownership of ideas looks like, and the nature of family and the art world in general. 

McKellen is in his element, turning up the bitchiness and camp but with a script that is intelligent enough to dodge tackiness. Cole - who I have not seen since her incredible TV show I May Destroy You - is more nuanced and reserved. She moves with canny instincts through a moral quagmire, and the multiple twists in their relationship keep you engaged in the story. 
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The Christophers shows us that Soderbergh, even at this stage of his career, isn’t out of tricks or new directions. If he can still pull off pseudo-camp spy thrillers as well as deft character studies like this, then we can hopefully look forward to a solid couple of decades of unpredictable but loveable work. (PO)

The Christophers is showing at ​Prytania Theatres at Canal Place