“If you’re a painter, I don’t want to know about it,” Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) tells Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) upon her arrival at his home in London in “The Christophers,” not wanting to around anyone with a paintbrush after he largely gave up his own practice years ago. The walls of his dilapidated home have remnants of the art star he once was and he is reminded on a daily basis when he makes a small bit of cash on Cameo filming videos for fans he accumulated from a celebrated run or just as likely a reality TV show called “Art Fight” where he became a favorite belittling aspiring artists with his brutal critiques. He hasn’t gotten any nicer to go by how he sizes up Lori, who is indeed a painter, but has been told not to mention it even before arriving at Julian’s by his children Barnaby (James Corden) and Sally (Jessica Gunning), who have put her up for an assistant job with the aim of getting their hands on some of his unfinished works. Lori could use the income when she sells Chinese food from a trailer in order to afford the time to paint, but that isn’t what drives her to take on the gig when her old art school classmate Sally calls with the challenge of not only procuring the paintings but finishing them for sale after Julian’s death, likely to fetch a fortune when the pieces are a long-rumored but never seen conclusion to a series known as “The Christophers.”
Julian’s masterwork may end up unrealized, at least if he has anything to say about the matter, but “The Christophers” has all the fine finishing touches that only a master of the form like Steven Soderbergh could make, a dazzling two-hander that could seem as if it’s better suited to the stage when all it needs is two exciting performers in the leads yet has all that medium’s raw power while bearing all the cinematic sleight-of-hand that made the “Ocean’s” movies so fun. Working from a script by frequent collaborator Ed Solomon (“No Sudden Move,” “Full Circle”), the film is plenty of fun to watch as McKellen and Coel are set to spar when Julian susses out his ne’er do well children’s plans and would prefer to burn the paintings than have them fall into other hands – as Julian informs Lori, “Don’t underestimate the internet savvy of an artist who Googles himself constantly” upon finding her background online. But there’s something significantly deeper when Lori could clearly replicate what Julian did, intuiting even the emotion behind the work from the biographical information she’s able to glean from research, and the film raises provocative questions about how art gets its value while Julian can’t help but be intrigued to see whether she can satisfactorily complete his work, particularly when it stymied him so thoroughly.
The dynamic between McKellen and Coel is about as good as it gets as a seasoned pro and a young upstart that trade barbs, accentuated by fluid camerawork by Soderbergh that stays out of the way of the sparks flying yet fluidly moves up and down the three stories of Julian’s house to keep the film crackling. Gunning and Corden also make for a perfect pair of uncouth siblings, popping up throughout the proceedings as their best laid plans hits plenty of snags. The comedy breezes by, however, as it tackles sophisticated ideas about art without ever feeling stuffy or pretentious. Both painters are revealed to have questioned themselves and the worth of continuing to pick up a brush when they can’t help but feel they’ve received diminishing returns on their investment, with observations such as destroying some work to just see what it feels like seeming to emerge from what a true artist has experienced and while the battle of wits between Julian and Lori will have one reaching for the popcorn, it’s the personal struggle for both to appreciate what they’re capable of that makes “The Christophers” a knockout, with everyone behind the scenes operating at the height of their powers.
“The Christophers” will screen again at the Toronto Film Festival at the TIFF Lightbox on September 12th at 9 am and September 13th at 9 pm.