The Christophers is a 2025 black comedy drama directed by Steven Soderbergh from a screenplay by Ed Solomon. It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last September and was released in the UK on 15 May.

Ageing, cantankerous, irascible English artist Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) was famous back-in-the-day, primarily for two series of paintings known as “The Christophers”, which now sell for millions. There is a third unfinished series which Sklar does not wish to show, however his weird children (James Corden and Jessica Gunning) want the pictures to be stolen and completed – they need the money. They enlist the services of art restorer and forger Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) to become Sklar’s new assistant and accomplish this ‘theft’. And so begins an interesting cat and mouse game between Sklar and Butler.

The plus points: McKellen and Coel are both excellent in their roles and the interplay between their characters is very entertaining; and the ending is really good.

The minus points: the children are badly written cyphers, and Cordon and Gunning fail to make them interesting or credible – they seem to just play themselves; the plot is simply not believable: for one thing a series of nine unfinished works by a master at the height of his powers would be worth millions anyway, they don’t need to be completed by a forger, and in any case, if Sklar was determined to disinherit his children, he could just disinherit them!

However, the ridiculousness of the plot does not matter. This is a power game, much in the manner of the cat and mouse power games beloved by acting schools and writers’ courses for time immemorial. It is about the relative power and status levels between the two principal characters at any given moment and, as such, it is fun to watch. However, this sort of exercise only becomes a fleshed-out story in the hands of the likes of Harold Pinter, and sadly Solomon is no Pinter.

Incidentally, this film is very badly served by the trailer, which includes all the campest, over-acted, one-liners from the film, presumably to make it look much more of a laugh-out-loud comedy than it is. It originally put me off, however I decided to take a punt anyway, and I am glad I did. I suspect anyone who goes along having really enjoyed the trailer and wanting more of the same may be sadly disappointed.

The Christophers is a fun film, but that is about all. It has little depth and a weak plot. If you are looking for vintage Soderbergh, this is not it.