With The Christophers, Steven Soderbergh Has Crafted His Best Film in Decades

You can't fake this: 'The Christophers' is a witty film about forgery and friendship

In Steven Soderbergh's new dark comedy, Ian McKellen plays a famous painter, and Michaela Coel is an art restorer hired to infiltrate his home by his greedy grown-up children.

AT THE TRIPLEX: The Steven Soderbergh experience continues in ‘The Christophers’

Most directors aspire to be “-esque”: to create a signature style of storytelling that becomes shorthand for a genre unto itself. Think of the surreality that makes something Felliniesque, the rapid-fire dialogue and violence that is Tarantinoesque, or the grand mix of action and sentiment in the Spielbergesque. But when it comes to Oscar-winning director Stephen Soderbergh, the most defining aspect of his nearly 40-year career is that it is alw…

Soderbergh’s new movie dazzles thanks to its spectacular stars

“The Christophers,” directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen, is a sparkling, funny, wise movie about two painters.

With The Christophers, Steven Soderbergh Has Crafted His Best Film in Decades

Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen are exceptionally well-cast in The Christophers, the witty and complex new drama from director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Ed Solomon. Everything about Coel’s Lori and McKellen’s Julian is a contrast, from their ages to how they communicate. Though traveling a well-trod trope—over the course of the film, Lori and Julian go from outright disdain for one another to sharing a mutual respect—Coel and McKellen im…

Art is a relationship in 'The Christophers'

“The Christophers” opens with a shot of a drawing. Our protagonist, Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), is sitting on a bench, sketching the building across from her. She’s passing time (she works at the Chinese food truck parked next to the bench), and a completed sketch of the same building already sits on one side of her notebook, as she works on a second identical sketch.  We won’t really question what Lori is doing until later, but as the film goe…