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If you're looking for a beautifully acted, intelligent movie that explores interesting ideas in a darkly funny as well as dramatic way, look no further.
The surprise here is screenwriter Ed Solomon. While director Steven Soderbergh has long made smart Hollywood movies such as Traffic alongside more commercial fare like the Ocean's series, Solomon's major credits are firmly in the Hollywood commercial mainstream (Men in Black, the Bill and Ted and Now You See Me movies).
This atypical movie is, unsurprisingly, a more personal project for Solomon. He's said he wrote it to explore his relationships with mentor figures, some of whom gave up for different reasons. One of them was his mother, an artist who stopped painting twice: for a period after she became a parent and later, when she was no longer physically capable.
The Christophers is essentially a chamber piece, set in London, that focuses mostly on two characters in a terraced house. But when the dialogue and characters and ideas are good, the limitations are forgotten. And the film is telling an original story, so it's hard to predict where things will go. It's possible to quibble about certain points, but not really worth it.
Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) is a struggling art restorer and one-time painter who is recruited by Barnaby Sklar (James Corden) and his sister Sallie (Jessica Gunning) for an unusual assignment. Their father Julian (Ian McKellen), a once renowned artist, is very ill. They want Lori to work as his assistant while secretly completing a series of his unfinished canvases, known as the Christophers, that depict a former lover. Then they can inherit them when he dies. The first two series of Christophers sold for large sums and they hope this lot will do likewise.
She's initially reluctant but with little else happening in her life, Lori soon turns up at Julian's doorstep. He's sardonic, candid and loquacious, talking more about himself than her, but eventually accepts her. When the subject of the Christophers arises, he has his own plans: he wants her to take them out of storage and destroy them.
What follows is fascinating as the relationship between Julian and Lori develops and the fate of the Christophers remains uncertain. Both have things they're not telling but the internet is a vast and permanent record: it's nigh impossible to keep anything discoverable on there hidden forever.
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McKellen adds another excellent performance to his long list. Julian is physically frail but mentally sharp and has a complicated relationship with his past. He went from major art figure to has-been when his time passed and his work was deemed to have declined. For a while he made caustic comments as a judge on a TV show assessing amateurs' art and when Lori comes into his life, he is making a few quid recording personal messages for old fans and aspiring artists (for which there seems to be a surprising demand, one of those minor quibbles).
Lori is a somewhat more enigmatic figure, though we learn about her as the story progresses. As for Julian's children, let's just say the initial impression they make doesn't really go away.
Throughout the story and relationships, the film explores a lot of questions about art that remain perennial subjects for thought and discussion. What makes an artwork valuable, both artistically and financially? Is it the idea, the execution, or the artist's reputation? If you saw a piece of art and liked it and were told it was by a well-known artist, then you found out that it was in fact by someone obscure, would your opinion of the work change? Should it?
These and other ideas are implicitly raised throughout rather than being bluntly stated and despite the low-key style, the movie rewards attention and thought. It's beautifully made, one of my favourite films of the year so far.
