Shake the family trees of many celebrated artists nearing the end of their lives and you’re likely to find at least one heir plotting how to keep the cash cow going postmortem, in the meantime guiding arthritic hands to sign every last doodle that might be worth something. Not to mention wincing in pain any time another museum donation gets shipped off. In The Christophers, Steven Soderbergh’s crafty comedy about legacy, forgery, unbridled greed and resentments, the grasping adult offspring of a once celebrated painter are the embodiment of avaricious scheming. They won’t miss the old man, but they’ll miss the sums his work can fetch.

Written by Ed Solomon, who collaborated with Soderbergh on the twisty neo-noir No Sudden Move as well as the TV series Mosaic and Full Circle, the film is a talky chamber piece that’s virtually a two-hander and could just as easily have been a play. But the verbal sparring between Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen as characterological opposites who find tricky common ground, would make for smart entertainment in any medium.

The Christophers

The Bottom Line

An impeccable paint job.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Special Presentations)
Cast: Michaela Coel, Ian McKellen, Jessica Gunning, James Corden
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Screenwriter: Ed Solomon
1 hour 39 minutes

McKellen plays Julian Sklar, first seen looking the epitome of the gone-to-seed painter in a rumpled plaid chore coat, scarf and beret in his rambling double-front townhouse on a posh London square. Inside, the place is as decrepit as Julian, every corner cluttered with canvases, papers and enough dusty ephemera to warm the heart of any hoarder. (Kudos to production designer Antonia Lowe.)

His cachet as an esteemed art world figure waned decades ago. But his celebrity stock rose after his productivity had petered out when he became a vituperative judge on a TV reality contest show called Art Fight, pouring scorn on the awful kitten paintings of children and housewives.

The notoriety he gained from being vicious on national television has allowed him to earn a meager income recording personalized messages on a Cameo-type platform. Which means he now has a laptop and an LED donut lamp in place of an easel. He also drew TV coverage for a “Sidewalk Salon,” when he sold his paintings at bargain prices as a big FU to the commercialized art world.

Among Julian’s most highly prized and lucrative works were two series called “The Christophers,” named for a significant figure in his life, whom he recalls with sadness and regret, unlike the scavenger children he scathingly refers to as “buzzard Barnaby” (James Corden) and “the hyena Sally” (Jessica Gunning).

Whispers have long circulated among art collectors that a third series of Christophers exists unfinished, which could potentially go for millions if they were ever completed and put on the market. It’s that series that Barnaby and Sally plan to get their money-grubbing paws on, having already burned through the considerable sum they made off other paintings by their father.

They contact Lori Butler (Coel), who was at Saint Martins College with Sally, though Julian later points out that his pushy no-talent daughter enrolled strictly via the nepotism program. (A painting by Sally dragged out to prove her father’s point is the movie’s most brilliant sight gag.) Since Lori’s art restoration business dried up, she’s been running a food truck. But Sally remembers her uncanny skill at copying other artists’ work, down to the finest details.

Positing that restoration and forgery are not so very different, Sally and Barnaby convince Lori to get herself hired as their father’s assistant, then gain his trust and full access to his house, the aim being to remove the eight unfinished canvasses from storage, complete them and then return them to storage to be claimed after their father’s death. The siblings offer her a third of the sale proceeds. They also remind Lori of her acrimony toward Julian: “We know why you hate him. Think of this as a way to get revenge.”

So far so intriguing. While the pacing slackens here and there, Soderbergh (who also shot and edited the film under his usual pseudonyms) is in loose, playful mode, trading the exacting control of Presence and the seductive sheen of Black Bag for a more unmanicured look, with lots of nimble handheld camera and sharp framing to goose up the character interactions. Seriously, who else drops three distinctive features in the same year? (Presence technically was 2024, given that it premiered last year at Sundance.)

From the moment Lori steps through the front door and first sets eyes on the creaky octogenarian (“Never get old,” is perhaps the warmest thing he says to her during that first encounter), it’s clear that the pairing of Coel and McKellen will deliver scintillating friction. Lori barely gets a word in throughout the “interview” as Julian tirelessly bloviates, though she does establish that the unfinished Christophers are indeed locked away on the third floor.  

That’s the cue for Soderbergh and Solomon to put the plan into action and then throw a succession of wrenches in it — compromising knowledge surfaces; a battle of wills ensues; hidden agendas are exposed; and blackmail, betrayal and double-crosses are stirred into the mix as the power dynamic keeps shifting. Somehow, the upper hand never lingers long with Sally and Barnaby, drolly played by Gunning and Corden as a conniving Tweedledee and Tweedledum, loyal to no one and convinced their venality is justified by their father’s history of terrible parenting.

While the détente between Julian and Lori couldn’t consistently be described as either complicity or duplicity — two Soderbergh favorites — they develop an understanding of sorts, which adds underlayers of bruised disappointment that they seem to recognize in each other, without ever relinquishing their cunning.

One of the funniest interludes is when Julian reveals that he knows exactly who and what the supposed art world newbie is. “Never underestimate the internet prowess of a man who has spent decades Googling himself,” says Julian, delivered by McKellen with the touché flourish of a master of the bon mot.

He even reads excerpts from a blistering takedown article Lori wrote about him years earlier, in which she opines that “his only outrage against cancel culture came after he had been canceled himself.” Solomon doesn’t go deep into the cause, though we have no trouble imagining Julian’s blunt transgressions. This is a man never shy about expressing his disdain, who puts Andy Warhol and “Dogs Playing Poker” on the same level — ironically, something with which Warhol might have agreed.

It’s revealed that Sklar was Lori’s inspiration as a child to become an artist, only to crush that spark a dozen or so years later with stinging cruelty. In a knockout scene, she stuns Julian into uncharacteristic speechlessness with a detailed and highly articulate analysis of Series 1 and 2 of “The Christophers,” in terms of both variations in technique and the evolving emotional state of the artist. Her forensic ability to read in the eyes of his subject specifics like when Julian was falling in love and when he was coming out as queer seems entirely accurate.

The unguarded personal reflections this prompts from Julian are profoundly moving, especially when coming from a towering actor who has also been a prominent gay activist for decades. While further revelations about “Christopher” feel somewhat rushed, the movie concludes on a resonant note.

Throughout his prolific 40-year career, Soderbergh has proven himself a great director of actors, evident here in every moment McKellen or Coel are onscreen, and doubly so when they share scenes.

McKellen plays offense with wicked glee, but it’s when he lets vulnerability and hurt peek through the cracks in Julian’s sardonic armor that the performance soars highest. At 86, the actor remains in peerless form. Coel, the boundary-pushing revelation from I May Destroy You, is a perfect foil, hiding Lori’s feelings behind her deadpan delivery, unblinking sphinx-like stare and wary body language but poised to shoot barbs when the moment calls for them.

Few are going to rate The Christophers as top-tier Soderbergh, but it bats about ideas pertaining to art, commerce, ownership and legacy with dexterous aplomb and boasts two equally superb leads who make the material crackle.