The Christophers Parent Guide

Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) is, like most professional artists, broke. She’s working a couple of jobs, everything from a food truck to an art restoration business, just to keep the lights on. Now a tempting and potentially lucrative offer is on the table: an art school acquaintance, Sallie (Jessica Gunning) and her brother, Barnaby (James Corden) have an illegal proposal in mind. They want Lori to work as an assistant to their father, famous artist Julian Sklar (Ian McKellan), and take advantage of access to his art supplies to forge several new paintings.  

Sallie is focused on a series of unfinished canvases, dating back to a previous series of extremely popular paintings called “The Christophers”. If Lori can paint successful forgeries, then Sallie and Barnaby will cut her in for a good percentage of the sale – but there’s a catch. Julian’s first job for her is to destroy the old “Christophers” canvases. He wants to watch them burn before he dies. 

This film does a lot of winding around, sliding between schemes and discoveries that prompt new scheming, rather than building for a big climactic twist. It’s less one-big-plate, more many-little-appetizers. That’s not to say the story isn’t focused. There isn’t much down time, so the movie clips by at a good rate despite the dialogue-heavy plot. The sub-two-hour runtime doesn’t hurt any, either.  

Of course, the movie benefits from the performances by Coel and McKellan, both of whom are fascinating. Sir Ian seems to be having a good bit of fun as the prickly curmudgeon with an acid tongue and a long list of enemies, but Coel’s quieter, focused performance keeps the film from feeling like you’re just listening to a bitter old man ranting non-stop. Even then, this isn’t a show for family audiences, mostly due to some profanity and near-constant drinking.  

There’s a lot to like about The Christophers. Fans of director Steven Soderbergh’s other work are going to find this a little more sedate – closer to Presence than Kimi, although I like both. It’s introspective and melancholy without smothering the bite and pep of its characters. If nothing else, this tale should make you feel a little bit better about your relationship with your parents – unless you are in the process of planning an elaborate forgery to profit off your ill relations, in which case, you may want to watch the movie anyway. It sounds like you could use the advice.