“Julian Sklar here. Your mother would like me to tell you not to quit art school. Seriously, do. Those clowns at Camberwell will poison you with their Sainsbury’s aisles and ideas, processed, packed in plastic. The stalest up front so that you buy into those first. Grow your own, I say. Go organic! Although I hear that’s all rubbish, too. Do you know how much plastic we eat in a week? A credit card’s worth. It’s in the water now. It’s hopeless. So, happy birthday, stay in school, blah, blah, blah.”
Ian McKellen stars as elder artist Julian Sklar. He’s old and not expected to be alive for long. That’s at least how his two children feel about it. Sallie (Gunning) and Barnaby (Corden) hire an art restoration artist that Sallie once went to school with. Lori Butler is played by Michaela Coel. What they want from her isn’t a simple restoration. She has a bit of a grudge against Sklar, and they try to use it to their advantage. Sklar is most famous for a series of paintings called The Christophers. They were of a lover he had in his early days. The kids believe there is a third series but that Sklar never completed them. They want Lori to pose as his assistant so she can access the work he has done and secretly finish it. The paintings will be worth a fortune, and Sklar doesn’t feel quite so generous toward his children. It all plays out in the latest film from Steven Soderbergh, The Christophers, out on Blu-ray.
Lori starts to act out her part, but somewhere along the line she’s learned to let go of her animosity. Sklar is also not as feeble-minded as everyone thinks. He does research on Lori and discovers that she is also an artist and that she once posted a scathing essay against Sklar. Both are having epiphanies of a sort. When Sklar confronts her, she’s already given up the plan, and their relationship takes a whimsical turn. The best parts of the film happen when they scheme together to recreate these paintings, but make them really badly. They learn the kids have already sold the paintings, and so the duo plan a fun kind of revenge. It’s here that Sklar starts to come back alive for the first time in decades, and the two actors manage to create some wonderful chemistry from a relationship that starts rather coldly. This is where the somewhat intimate and solemn film begins to have a tremendous emotional energy.
“Don’t get me wrong. I like my flattery. I just need to believe it.”
That’s really the only takeaway from the movie. Steven Soderbergh knows how to create a narrative, but this might be some of his best work. It’s constructed very much like a stage play, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the story take that direction. You could almost call it a series of dialogs, because that’s where all of the meat is on the bone here. It’s where all of the magic happens. There’s a very limited cast, and it mostly takes place in one location, and it’s actually quite brilliant in its simplicity.
I’ve always liked Ian McKellen. He’s one of those actors who can really act with his eyes. He’s almost hypnotic when he’s performing, and I have found each of his performances over the years captivating. He’ll be returning to his Magneto role again in December, and I hope there will be some stuff between McKellen and Patrick Stewart. They also have wonderful chemistry, and it’s truly a gift that they will get a chance to play it out one more time. This film puts me in mind of McKellen’s performance as an elder and retired Sherlock Holmes. Who could have believed that a Holmes movie without a crime to investigate could be so compelling? It was one of my favorite films of that year. He’ll also reprise his wise old Gandalf role in next year’s The Search For Gollum. The 86-year-old thespian still has a few bows to take in the near future, and film lovers the world over are going to be the better for it. The film comes with a two-minute interview with the writers. It comes out from Neon and Alliance, and you might want to check it out. If you think you’ve seen a better performance this year, “Bring me the evidence.”
