The Christophers

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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From Steven Soderbergh (“Black Bag”), “The Christophers” is a kind of psychological push and pull story, reminiscent of Norman Jewison or Hitchcock. The film can also be seen as a character study highlighting eccentricity. Though the plot is snaky and opaque at times, it features a vibrant and detailed performance by Ian McKellen.

Struggling painter Lori (Michaela Coel) is hired by the son and daughter (James Corden and Jessica Gunning) of a once famous painter Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) to complete some rare paintings, titled “The Christophers” thought to be lost, before the artist dies.

Reluctantly, Lori agrees.

Sklar tells Lori to destroy the original paintings, as they are certain to cause trouble. Lori makes a few forgeries and destroys those, hoping to appease Sklar’s family and ensure artistic legacy.

Sklar has intuition that Lori will double cross him, and goes into a rage.

Overwhelmed, Lori leaves.

After a meeting with Sklar’s son and daughter, in which they reveal themselves to be ultra greedy and materialistic, Sklar makes up with Lori, asking her to forge the paintings and later to deface them, ultimately making the paintings more famous than ever.

First and foremost, it is Ian McKellen that pulls you into the film as the sincerely unpredictable and mercurial aging artist. The actor goes through a range of emotions here and one never quite knows what to expect from one moment to the next he is one part Oscar Wilde and one part Francis Bacon. He is also curmudgeonly, charming and impossible to understand.

Lori’s personality is opaque. Is she sincere or duplicitous? She has a strange icy tranquility throughout most every interaction, excluding Sklar’s intermittent raging.

Soderbergh’s micro-focused close up camera shots are well in evidence here. All the better for its ambiguous and deadpan denouement.

This icy, compact and somewhat objectivist film about human foibles and stubbornness will keep you guessing.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com