Steven Soderbergh's The Christophers strikes me as one of his cleverest and most thought-provoking films; it's of a piece with his one-two punch of last year, Presence and Blag Bag, showing a filmmaker still alive in the game, exploring new genres and new filmmaking styles. Ed Solomon wrote the screenplay, and even though he has had some big hits with the Bill & Ted and Men in Black movies, I submit that it's his best-ever work. (I was a fan of Solomon's directorial debut Levity.)
In The Christophers, Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) is a struggling young artist in London. A former classmate, Sallie (Jessica Gunning) and her brother Barnaby (James Corden) contact her with a job offer. Their father is Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen), an eccentric and successful artist known for his series of paintings based on his lover, "The Christophers." An unfinished set of paintings languishes somewhere in Julian's home. His children want Lori to pose as an assistant, find the paintings, and use her skills as an art forger to finish them and help sell them for a fantastic fortune. Lori reluctantly agrees, but when she meets Julian, she finds him a formidable opponent, wily and cagey. The bulk of the movie consists of loaded exchanges between Lori and Julian, like terse chess moves. Both characters are exceedingly clever and capable of remaining one jump ahead of the other. Soderbergh uses the cluttered, multi-story apartment to brilliant effect, suggesting lives fully lived, experiences painfully carved out and earned. It's constantly engaging, even thrilling, to witness the two characters going head-to-head, using intimidation, experience, and sheer nerve to out-guess one another.
Neon's Blu-ray release includes Dolby Atmos, 5.1 and audio description mixes, optional subtitles in English, French, and Spanish, and a trailer. The only bonus is a brief chat between screenwriter Solomon and another screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman (1:59). There's a trailer for Boots Riley's I Love Boosters at startup. Even though it's bare-bones, this one is Recommended.
