Micheala Coel (L) and Ian McKellen in ‘The Christophers.’ (Photo courtesy of NEON)
Sir Ian McKellen may now be known as much for being a champion of the international LGBTQ+ equality movement as he is for being a thespian.
Out and proud since 1988 and encouraging others in the public eye to follow his lead, he’s a living example of the fact that it’s not only possible for an out gay man to be successful as an actor, but to rise to the top of his profession while unapologetically bringing his own queerness into the spotlight with him all the way there. For that example alone, he would deserve his status as a hero of our community; his tireless advocacy – which he continues even today, at 86 – elevates him to the level of icon.
Those who know him mostly for that, however, may not have a full appreciation for his skills as an actor; it’s true that his performances in the “Lord of the Rings” and “X-Men” movies are familiar, however, this is a man who has spent more than six decades performing in everything from “Hamlet” to “Waiting for Godot” to “Cats,” and while his franchise-elevating talents certainly shine through in his blockbuster roles, the range and nuance he’s acquired through all that accumulated experience might be better showcased in some of the smaller, less bombastic films in which he has appeared – and the latest effort from prolific director Steven Soderbergh, a darkly comedic crime caper set in the dusty margins of the art world, is just the kind of film we mean.
Now in theaters for a limited release, “The Christophers” casts McKellen opposite Michaela Coel (“Chewing Gum,” “I May Destroy You”) for what is essentially a London-set two-character game of intellectual cat-and-mouse. He’s Julian Sklar, an elderly painter who was once an art-world superstar but hasn’t produced a new work in decades; she’s Lori Butler, an art critic and restoration expert who is working in a food truck by the Thames to make ends meet when she is approached by Sklar’s children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning) with a proposition.
Hoping to cash in on their father’s fame, they want to set her up as his new assistant, allowing her access to an attic containing unfinished canvases he abandoned decades ago – so that she can use her skills to finish them herself, creating a forged series of completed paintings that can be “posthumously discovered” after his death and sold for a fortune.
She takes the job, unable to resist an opportunity to get close to Sklar – who, despite his renown, now lives as a bitter and unkempt recluse – for reasons of her own. Though his health is fading, his personality is as full-blown as ever; he’s also still sharp, wily, and experienced enough with his avaricious children to be suspicious of their motives for hiring her. Even so, she wins his trust (or something like it) and piques his interest, setting the stage for a relationship that’s part professional protocol, part confessional candor, and part battle-of-wits – and in which the “scamming” appears to be going in both directions.
That’s it, in a nutshell. A short synopsis really does describe the entire plot, save for the ending which, of course, we would never spoil. Even if it’s technically a “crime caper,” the most action it provides is of the psychological variety: there are no guns, no gangsters, no suspicious lawmen hovering around the edges; it’s just two minds, sparring against each other – and themselves – about things that have nothing to do with the perpetration of artistic forgery and fraud, but perhaps everything to do with their own relationships with art, fame, hope, disillusionment, and broken dreams. Yet it grips our attention from start to finish, thanks to Soderbergh’s taut directorial focus, Ed Solomon’s tersely efficient screenplay, and – most of all – the star duo of McKellen and Cole, who deliver a master class in duo acting that serves not just as the movie’s centerpiece but also its main attraction.
The former, cast in a larger-than-life role that lends itself perfectly to his own larger-than-life personality, embodies Sklar as the quintessential misanthropic artist, aged beyond “bad boy” notoriety but still a fierce iconoclast – so much so that even his own image is fair game for being deconstructed, something to be shredded and tossed into fire along with all those unfinished paintings in his attack; he’s a tempestuous, ferociously intelligent titan, diminished by time and circumstance but still retaining the intimidating power of his adversarial ego, and asserting it through every avenue that remains open to him. It’s the kind of film character that feels tailor-made for a stage performer of McKellen’s stature, allowing him to bring all the elements of his lifelong craft in front of the camera and deliver the complexity, subtlety, and perfectly-tuned emotional control necessary to transcend the cliché of the eccentric artist. His Sklar is comedically crotchety without being doddering or foolish, performatively flamboyant without seeming phony, and authentic enough in his breakthrough moments of vulnerability to avoid coming off as over-sentimental. Perhaps most important of all, he is utterly believable as a formidable and imperious figure, still capable of commanding respect and more than a match for anyone who dares to challenge him.
As for Coel’s Lori, it’s the daring that’s the key to her performance. Every bit Sklar’s equal in terms of wile, she also has power, and yes, ego too; we see it plainly when she is deploys it with tactical precision against his buffoonish offspring, but she holds it close to the chest in her dealings with him, like a secret weapon she wants to keep in reserve. When he inevitably sees through her ploy, she has the intelligence to change the game – her real motivation has little to do with the forgery plan, anyway – and get personal. Coel (herself a rising icon from a new generation of UK performers) plays it all with supreme confidence, yet somehow lets us see that she’s as wary of him as if she were facing a hungry tiger in its own cage.
It’s after the “masks” come off that things get really interesting, allowing these two characters become something like “shadow teachers” for each other, forming a shaky alliance to turn the forgery scheme to their own advantage while confronting their own lingering emotional wounds in the process; that’s when their battle of wits transforms into something closer to a “pas de deux” between two consummate artists, both equally able to find the human substance of Soderbergh’s deceptively cagey movie and mine it, as a perfectly-aligned team, from under the pretext of the trope-ish “art swindle” plot – and it’s glorious to watch.
That said, the art swindle is entertaining, too – which is another reason why “The Christophers” feels like a nearly perfect movie. Smart and substantial enough to be satisfying on multiple levels, it’s also audacious enough in its murky morality to carry a feeling of countercultural rebellion into the mix; and that, in our estimation, is always a plus.
The National LGBT Media Association represents 13 legacy publications in major markets across the country with a collective readership of more than 400K in print and more than 1 million + online. Learn more here: NationalLGBTMediaAssociation.com.
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