Overview
- The Christophers, which opens in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, begins a limited run from Neon before a nationwide expansion on April 17.
- Ian McKellen plays Julian Sklar, a once-famous London painter, and Michaela Coel plays Lori Butler, an art restorer drawn into a plan to finish his unfinished “Christophers” portraits for sale.
- Coverage notes vivid world-building as production designer Antonia Lowe and painter Barnaby Gorton created the on-screen canvases and a lived-in dual-townhouse studio that anchors the story.
- Soderbergh details a handheld visual approach after characters enter Sklar’s home and a sustained house-wide sequence designed to reflect the character’s history and headspace.
- Reviews from the Associated Press, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, RogerEbert.com, and The Art Newspaper praise the lead performances and frame the film as a talk-forward study of authorship, value, and legacy in the contemporary art world.