The Christophers

Watched on a plane, where all Steven Soderbergh films since 2018 should rightly be viewed. Bill & Ted scribe Ed Solomon, who also penned one of the director's better "post-retirment" pictures, No Sudden Move, spins this original yarn about a talented but insecure young artist who is hired by the estranged children of a once-renowned painter, now more famous for being canceled and for his outspoken views of the art world, to complete their father's unfinished works so they can be "discovered" and sold after he kicks the bucket.

Ian McKellen plays the famous painter, Julian Sklar, and it's the type of bombast-compensating-for-deep-vulnerability role that the great actor can really sink his teeth into. Think Gods and Monsters, but this time he doesn't need old-age make-up. Michaela Coel plays the art forger, and her soft-spoken way of underplaying every emotion is a good counterbalance to McKellen's grand performance as the verbose and theatrical Julian. Much of the film is made up of two-hander scenes in which these two size each other up and test each other in various ways.

The film's tone is a bit unsteady. It's a dark comedy grounded in the real world, but the casting of Gavin & Stacey's James Corden and Baby Reindeer's Jessica Gunning makes the scenes with Julian's horrible adult children come off like a broad sitcom shtick. This undercuts the power of the movie, but not to a fatal extent. These two supporting actors and the rather abrupt third act, with its pointed yet non-committal conclusions about what constitutes art, render the final product a minor curiosity rather than a fully satisfying picture. But that's probably fine with Soderbergh, who seems intent on only making as many minor curiosities as possible these days.