Steven Soderbergh has directed 11 features since 2017—which was the year blue collar caper Logan Lucky sprung the director from a self-imposed retirement.
This bountiful run includes shot-in-secret-on-an-iPhone thriller Unsane (2018), thoughtful exotic dancer threequel Magic Mike’s Last Dance (2023), bone-shaking ghost story Presence (2024), bone-dry spy story Black Bag (2025), and now The Christophers, a lilting two-hander about aging and art that’s out in theaters this week. Soderbergh’s prolificacy’s matched only by his eagerness to seemingly make a movie about, pretty much, whatever.
It may seem jarring for the man to un-retire into a whole new era of regular creative expression—to go from complete stasis to production so predictable you can pretty much track the seasons around his new films— however Soderbergh has honed his process (and his crew) down to the essentials.
Today, Soderbergh’s pace is mostly limited by how long it takes to film each title.n the case of The Christophers, it took about two weeks and some reshoots. He edits at night, is his own cinematographer, shoots in order where possible, and stands ready with a working cut at about the same instant his actors have wrapped.
Total control is what he’s after. That’s why he supposedly retired in the first place; he lamented the lack of control studios allowed him over his own art. Logan Lucky, written by his partner Jules Asner, gave him that first whiff of freedom. Self-distribution meant no boundaries, no contradictory notes from executives, no more “no.” Soderbergh thrived in this new paradigm, becoming more efficient than ever, and winnowing his craft to the nub rather than blowing it up like Francis Ford Coppola selling a winery to finish Megalopolis.
The Christophers takes the entire art economy to task, and that feels like an ideal movie for Soderbergh to release. Written by Ed Solomon, creator of the Bill and Ted saga—a man who has been steadily in and out of the franchise mines—the film begins with laconic freelance art forger Lori (Michaela Coel) agreeing to a potentially very lucrative job offered by sniveling siblings Sally (Jessica Gunning) and Barnaby (James Corden) Sklar.
As part of their plan, Lori must get hired as assistant to their reclusive father, Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen), an iconic celebrity-level artist who mostly feeds himself through doing Cameos and otherwise avoiding painting and/or appearing in public. Once on the inside of Julian’s cluttered London townhome, Lori is tasked with finding the remaining paintings of Julian’s uncompleted, but storied, “Christophers” series (oil paint portraits of a man commonly recognized as a past lover of Julian’s) so she can, without the artist knowing, “complete” them for Sally and Barnaby to sell after their father’s passed, which they imply should be soon enough.
Lori, of course, is a struggling artist herself, and a woman who carries her whole body as if it’s an edifice meant to hide that struggle under steely gazes and unflinching reactions to Julian’s mild temper tantrums. Granted she may have given up her ambitions as a gallery artist before turning to forgery, because of an untold incident with Julian decades before, but just as Julian has to record treacly cell phone videos to pay the bills, so Lori will “steal” this man’s art if it means a fat payout in a world where art is worth less than ever.
Initially pitted against each other, Coel and McKellen are almost too-obviously dichotomous performers. Her take on Lori translates through silent, effortless gestures and the rare earned smile, while McKellen’s Julian is a subtly flamboyant man with nothing to prove except that he will have the last word( the last sound!) in any situation. Eighty-six-year-old McKellen embodies his role as a symphony of murmurs, a fabulous assemblage of shuffling limbs and comfortable houseclothes.
Gradually, though, and accompanied by Soderbergh’s close-quarters, handheld camerawork weaving throughout Julian’s detritus-stacked abode, the two approach a heartrending harmony. They’re able to take down each other’s defenses to find substance beneath so much inflicted artifice. Both actors clearly know who their characters are, what’s in their hearts. In turn, the audience intuits that, apart from the short snatch of life pictured in the film, full lives have existed before and may exist after for these two people.
Speaking of short snatches of life: The Christophers takes place mostly in cramped, dust-cozy rooms that double as studios and bedrooms, or triple as offices, quadruple as dining rooms, small but laden with life. In these rooms we watch artists argue, eat, think, ponder, and pontificate, every once in a while making art, but mostly talking around it. Artificial intelligence doesn’t exactly haunt these rooms, but its spirit isn’t absent either.
Unfortunately, in the same interview with Filmmaker accompanying a description of how quickly The Christophers came together, Soderbergh also talks lovingly about using AI on his next two films.
As much as I think this sucks, and he should stop, I also get it, because AI for Soderbergh is just another powerful tool of control, one that will help him crank out movies more easily, more quickly, and much closer than ever to a purity of vision otherwise degraded by studio interference.
Far from condoning forgery, or even the “sampling” inherent to AI, The Christophers simply lets commerce—a concoction of social influence, taste, and a vague idea of what anyone is owed for their art—float like a translucent balloon in the foreground, ambient and never directly discussed with contempt, but occasionally obscuring the feelings of characters or even the physical view of the art itself.
When we do see any of Julian’s art, it seems largely competent, though at such a remove that we simply accept what we’re being told about it rather than forming any strong opinion. We’re apt to have a passive relationship with the art in this film, but then encouraged to take hold of that passivity to try to dig deeper. When Lori stops considering the remaining, unfinished “Christophers” as fabled jackpots and begins to explore who Christopher actually was, or is, we begin to understand how the art in this film, any art, could so profoundly connect people, no matter the cost. Lori’s relationship with Julian unfurls into a quiet glowing little joy.
The Christophers unfurls in much the same way. What first seems like a trifle, or a movie that basically took two to three weeks to make, reveals itself within that simplicity to be a deeply reflective, bittersweet exploration of the same artistic control that’s compelled Soderbergh to direct 11 movies in less than nine years, then swerve ass-first into AI.
The Christophers opens at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21; Living Room Theaters, 341 SW 10th on April 16, 100 minutes, rated R.
