{"id":502758,"date":"2026-02-27T09:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T09:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/502758\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T09:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T09:25:09","slug":"ian-mckellan-michaela-coel-and-soderbergh-come-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/502758\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian McKellan, Michaela Coel, and Soderbergh come together"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On paper, Steven Soderbergh\u2019s latest film\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/the-christophers-review\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Christophers<\/a>\u00a0sounds like it could come straight out of the director\u2019s more coldly analytical, heist-obsessed side: The film centers on Michaela Coel as an art restorer and former forger who\u2019s hired by the children of a formerly famous artist (Ian McKellan), who want her to infiltrate their father\u2019s life and illicitly finish several of his abandoned canvases, so that they can \u201cdiscover\u201d and sell them upon his death. As a premise, it has all the hallmarks of one of Soderbergh\u2019s exercises in cinematic intricacy, complete with a potential tightrope walk of deception between two talented performers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Except that that is\u00a0not\u00a0the film Soderbergh seems to have been interested in making\u2014at least, not according to the trailer Neon released for the movie today. Instead, The Christophers\u00a0is revealed to be far more of a character piece between Coel\u2019s Lori and McKellan\u2019s Julian, with her giving up the whole con to him during the trailer herself. (Sorry, James Corden and Jessica Gunning; better schemes next time.) Indeed, we seem to have here a vehicle for Coel\u2014who hasn\u2019t had a really meaty on-screen role to tear into since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/michaela-cole-surpasses-expectations-in-i-may-destroy-y-1843944942\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">I May Destroy You<\/a>\u00a0had its memorable run in 2020\u2014to radiate her characters\u2019 love of art, and for McKellan to project an appealing flavor of cynical bitterness about the state of both his life, and his talents.<\/p>\n<p>The Christophers\u00a0debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, where it got almost universally strong reviews\u2014including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.avclub.com\/the-christophers-review\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">our own B+ assessment of Soderbergh\u2019s movie<\/a>. In their review, Jason Gorber called the film \u201cArty, accessible, profound, and profane,\u201d reserving especial praise for McKellan\u2019s performance as reclusive artist Julian Sklar. The rest of us will be able to make our own judgment on the film\u2019s artistic merits soon; The Christophers\u00a0is slated to arrive in theaters on April 10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On paper, Steven Soderbergh\u2019s latest film\u00a0The Christophers\u00a0sounds like it could come straight out of the director\u2019s more coldly&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[49,48,75,337],"class_list":["post-502758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}