Watch This: The Christophers

In the terrific new film The Christophers, an art restorer with a background in forgery (Michaela Coel) takes a job as an assistant to a once-famous artist who's faded from public life (Ian McKellen). And her motives are… complicated. It might seem like a quiet story, but as directed by Steven Soderbergh, the movie packs a serious punch of talent. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/letterboxd.com/nprpopculture http://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus at plus.npr.org/happyhour https://plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from iXL, a learning platform for helping kids build confidence and get up to speed fast. One subscription covers math, science, and reading for all children in a household. Receive 20% off at ixl.com/NPR.

• 0:21Linda Holmes?

  In a terrific new film, The Christoffers, an art restorer with a little background in forgery takes a job as an assistant to a once famous artist who's faded from public life. And her motives are complicated.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  It might seem like a quiet story, but the movie packs a serious punch of top-notch talent. The artist is played by Ian McKellen, the assistant by Michaela Cole, and the film is directed by Steven Soderbergh. I'm Glen Weldon.

• 0:45Linda Holmes?

  And I'm Linda Holmes. And today, we're talking about The Christoffers on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR.

• 0:55Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Dell. Shop now during the Dell Top Tech Event and find award-winning tech like the Dell XPS 13 Laptop with long-lasting battery life and impressive performance powered by Intel Core processors. Visit dell.com/deals.

• 1:16Speaker 04

  This message comes from AT&T. Right now at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0.00 with eligible trade-in. It has the ultimate pro camera system and a big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Connecting changes everything. Requires trade-in of $230 or more and eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply. Subject to change. Visit an AT&T store for details.

• 1:40Speaker 03

  This message comes from International Medical Corps. When crises strike, every second matters. And that's why International Medical Corps moves fast. From the flooding in Nepal to earthquakes in Venezuela, they deliver lifesaving medical care and supplies around the world while training local health workers to ensure care continues long after the emergency ends. This giving season, your generosity saves lives and builds resilience for tomorrow. Learn more or donate today at internationalmedicalcorps.org/NPR.

• 2:14Linda Holmes?

  Joining us today is our co-host Aisha Harris. Hello, Ayesha. Hello, Linda. So, The Christophers begins with Michaela Cole as Laurie, an art restorer who gets a call from a brother and sister, played by James Corden and Jessica Gunning. They are the good-for-nothing children of the once very famous artist Julian Sklar, played by Ian McKellen. They have no real relationship to speak of with their father, and they're concerned they'll get nothing when he dies. So, they have a proposition for Laurie. She will get a job as Julian's assistant, and she'll sneak up to his attic and complete several unfinished canvases from a series known as The Christophers. Then, when Julian

• 2:54Linda Holmes?

  dies, these paintings will be discovered, and they will reap the rewards. Laurie decides to take the job, but when she meets the prickly Julian, he's not quite what she expects, and the story of The Christophers gets tricky, too. The movie is mostly a two-hander between Cole and McKellen, and they are pretty great together. The film is in theaters now. Glenn, I'm going to start with you. Where did you come down on The Christophers?

• 3:18Speaker 02

  Came down pro, solidly pro. I haven't seen any reviews, but I know this thing is going to get called by some folks, "stagey." And you can kind of see it, I guess, because it is, what is it? It's two characters trading dialogue in a series of rooms. And that gets compounded by the fact that the dialogue is about fine art, which feels, you know, as a subject, kind of rarified and erudite. And can I say elitist? Can I say tote-baggy? A little, it's a little tote-baggy. And I feel like we can say that. The calls are coming from inside the house. But I am so glad this is a film and not a stage production, because I worry that onstage, you might miss a lot of, most of, if not all of, what Cole

• 3:58Speaker 02

  is bringing, because she's bringing it in the close-ups. She is the real power in this pair of characters. And that's odd, because it seems like it's going to be McKellen at first, because his character is pontificating and bloviating, and it's real performative and very funny. But it soon becomes clear how much his character, and the film itself, and Soderbergh's camera is just obsessed with Cole's stillness, like this very self-possessed quality she's bringing. Because McKellen, his character's always fidgeting, and the handheld camera never stops moving. But Cole just plants herself in the center of this film, and everything kind of orbits around her. You know, that's aping the, the style of, like, cinema verite. Oh, we're just finding the characters in these rooms, and we're using natural light. But make no mistake.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  When he is his own cinematographer, he credits himself as Peter Andrews, but it is Soderbergh. He knows how to light black skin, which shouldn't be a big deal in 2026, but you see people screw it up all the time. And so much of this film takes place in the kind of plains of Cole's face that you just keep leaning in because you're waiting for her to react. And I don't remember her, this about her as an actor in things like Chewing Gum or I May Destroy You, but here she can be completely impassive, but not blank, right? The features are still, but the eyes are alive. And it's a great performance. I don't want to slight what McKellen's doing because he was 85 when he made this. He's a grand dame of theater. He could have

• 5:25Speaker 02

  just chewed the scenery and gone home, but he is in those scenes with her. He is acting and reacting. He's alive in the moment. He's letting us see how much she's getting to Julian, even as Julian, the character, is endeavoring to hide that fact. As you say, what a great two-hander, a great little chamber piece, but I do think this is Cole's movie.

• 5:44Aisha Harris?

  Yeah, I think I agree with you. Aisha, what did you think? I don't use this word often, but I feel like this pairing is very sublime. It's very divine. There's something about how we learn about, especially Michaela Cole's character, and how she is coming at this job, this inside job, in a way that shifts over the course of the movie. I don't want to give too much away. What I love about the performance there, and Glenn's already said a lot of what I was going to say, but this is a story about someone who is an artist, an acclaimed artist, a white male artist, and then you have someone who, we find out over the course of the film, that she is an artist herself, but that it's complicated by the fact that she's not actually practicing her own art in the same way that

• 6:26Aisha Harris?

  I think she intended to set out to do. And so there's these questions about like, what makes an artist? Is forgery, even if you're really good at it, is that actually art? And there's all these questions that I think are really interesting. I'm not sure if it answers all of those, but I do think what I love about this is that this is one of the better dramatic interpretations of ideas around, quote unquote, cancel culture and around generational divides between artists and between people in general. And

• 6:54Aisha Harris?

  What I really appreciate about this film is the fact that it tries to do those things, but it also does things in a Soderbergh way. Like, I think Soderbergh is one of my favorite filmmakers. If you look at his entire sort of catalog, he has done almost every kind of movie you could possibly think of, like, maybe except like a western or something. But he's done heist movies, and this is a heist movie, but it's not a heist movie. And that is, for me, it's a quiet movie. It's not Ocean's Eleven. It's not flashy. And what I love about it is that quietness, that stillness. And I also will say, I think many of us like to sort of hate on James Corden for legit reasons. Like, he's actually perfectly cast here.

• 7:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:36Aisha Harris?

  Just the right amount of him. And also, he's leaning into, like, smarm in a way that works really well.

• 7:44Speaker 02

  Peak deployment, yes. Peak deployment of James Corden.

• 7:47Linda Holmes?

  I heard somebody say about him once that if he's used in situations where he's supposed to be unappealing, he can be very, very good. It's when you use him in a way where he's supposed to be ingratiating that his entire persona seems to kind of backfire and not really work.

• 8:06Aisha Harris?

  Exactly.

• 8:06Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, I really, really liked this, too. You've both sort of alluded to some of these elements, but one of the things I like about this story is that there's such a good balance between Lori eventually comes to understand that she is dealing with this old man who is nearing the end of his life. And even though he's kind of a misanthrope, he's also actively lonely. And I think the movie finds a way to navigate those things and sort of allow her to understand them without her kind of letting him off the hook for all the things he's ever done and all the ways he's ever behaved

• 8:46Linda Holmes?

  and sort of said, "None of this is your responsibility. It's okay. Let me give you a hug, blah, blah, blah." She just understands that she is dealing with a man who, you know, his queerness has, you know, led to a lot of complexities in his life. As he says at one point, "I'm bisexual," and was when that still costs something, I think he says.

• 9:06Aisha Harris?

  Something along those, yeah.

• 9:07Linda Holmes?

  She understands that element of it. There are several moments where she kind of draws lines, and you can understand her saying, "You can do this up to this point, but if you do this, I'm gonna leave." Because it's not immediately obvious at the beginning. What he actually needs an assistant for because his kids want her to go, obviously, so she can forge these canvases, complete these canvases and pretend he did it. But from his perspective, there's a little stuff about cataloging, you know, his, his stuff, but it seems like it's more, he really wants company, but he has trouble acknowledging that he wants company. So she shows up and he's kind of testing whether he can get her to stay and be company.

• 9:52Linda Holmes?

  I don't know. I think that opening section where it seems like he's just trying to kind of push her out the door, but he doesn't really want her to leave. I found that fascinating.

• 10:03Speaker 02

  There are moments that McKellen lets us see where he realizes that his patter, his usual approach isn't working with her and they both register it in different ways. And so he becomes curious about her in a way, it's clear this character has not been curious about other people in a long time. And this screenwriter is Ed Solomon, who has worked with Soderbergh before, but this is the Bill and Ted guy. This is, this is the, and now you see me guy. He started out writing for Laverne and Shirley. And what we have here, I don't want to oversell it for people who haven't seen it, but like this isn't stopper, this isn't all be. I think the subject matter can kind of like convince you that it's working at a different level than it might be, but he is very clearly a student of those writers.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  He nails the contours and the rhythms in a way that I think is going to reward successive viewings. I mean, I keep going back to things like Arcadia and Rosenkrantz and Gildenstern and Virginia Woolf and Three Tall Women, not because the dialogue is so dense and it's hard to unpack, but because it's so pleasurable to listen to and to watch and to read. And I think I'm going to be coming back to this film a lot.

• 11:06Aisha Harris?

  Well, I think it's also just like, yes, it's part of that, as Linda was saying, it's him trying to test her out, but also he's just like a very suspicious person, you know, like he despises, he has so much dripping, oozing content for his two children. Like at one point he says, like, I had nothing to do with how they are, they're awful. And it's like, that's supposed to be both like a flex, but also it's like, but that means you were not in their life at all.

• 11:30Linda Holmes?

  Right.

• 11:31Aisha Harris?

  Like you were, you were not actually a good parent. So like, there's moments where I think, yes, it's true that to some extent he's testing her, but he's also just very suspicious. And this is a portrait of a man at the end of not just his life, but. Who's long past his prime of his career and knows it. And you can tell he has a lot of self contempt, too. He is constantly talking about how it's been thirty years since the last time he did anything of note or at all, really. He's kind of stopped doing the art. And it's very interesting to see that sort of self loathing play out with someone who was much younger and also has their own feelings about this person, even though they've just meeting them for the first time.

• 12:13Aisha Harris?

  But like, she has her own reasons for even taking this job. And I just find that so fascinating to see how they both kind of like, of course, they eventually kind of soften towards each other. Like, that's the natural progression. Like, you know that's probably where it's gonna end up. But the journey there is the fun. There's just so much character study going on here that I find so fun. And glad I have seen this now twice, and the second rewatch was even more rich. Right. There were so many more things I could notice and see and dig into from those performances and from what sort of the camera's doing. The camera's very subtle, but you know, Soderbergh's talked about how he, for most of the movie, if you're outside of the house, you're looking at like, you know, the studio and the dollies and all that stuff.

• 12:58Aisha Harris?

  And when you're inside the house with like, one exception, you see handheld, so you can move easily through the room. You can move over, you know, past their shoulders. You can follow Ian McKellen, you can follow Michaela Cole as their... And the house is just beautifully, I love the house. Like, it's a townhouse, it's an English townhouse. It is exactly what you might think an artist's townhouse would look like. Cluttered, but chic, like cluttered, but like, nice, contemporary. Everything has a place, but it still feels like kind of overwhelming. Yeah, no, I just really love this movie. It's just exactly what I, what I want from both these performers and from Soderbergh.

• 13:36Linda Holmes?

  One of the other things I noticed is that when you see Laurie in the house, a lot of the time, the way that she is dressed, the fabrics and the colors are very in harmony with the house. She seems to belong there. There's a scene in particular when she's going up to try to figure out where the Christophers are and get a look at them and everything. And you really can notice that she, at least at particular points in the story. The look of this very warm, especially up in that attic where these canvases are, the sunlight's very, very warm. Everything is kind of these rich browns and oranges and creamy

• 14:18Linda Holmes?

  colors. And there is one scene, if you watch for it, the way she's dressed is sort of meant to, I think, it conveys that she fits into this attic, like because of the commonality that there, I mean, to me, it makes sense because it's sort of a very artisty kind of place, whether you're him or whether you're her. The other thing I really appreciated about this is that if you're gonna make a movie about art, right, especially a movie that has an art forger in it, you sort of wonder, am I gonna get a lot of heavy-handed stuff about forgery and art and theft and fraud and all that stuff? And what I would say is

• 14:58Linda Holmes?

  you don't, you get a light but interesting interrogation of things like, why is art so expensive in certain circumstances? Yeah. There's an interesting conversation at one point between two characters about sort of, who does it benefit if you reveal that something is forged, right? Yeah. Does it do something for the artist? Does it do something for the person who owns the piece? Does it do something for the maybe gallery that sold the piece? Or does it hurt everybody? I think there are some interesting conversations around all of that stuff. Why, if these canvases are finished, they would be so incredibly valuable, but why is that? Yeah.

• 15:43Linda Holmes?

  You know, like I said, there's some consideration of those things, but I think it is allowed to stay in the backseat compared to this character play that's going on between these two people. Because It's impossible for me to imagine this with anyone else in either of these parts.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Right.

• 16:04Linda Holmes?

  I'm sure it could in an alternate universe. I guess you could do it and then it would make sense to me. It's impossible for me at this point to imagine anybody else in either of these two parts.

• 16:15Aisha Harris?

  Well, it's interesting that you say that, Linda, because Ed Solomon has said that they wrote this with these exact two actors in mind. Which like rarely happens, right? Where it actually goes from like, this is who I had in mind.

• 16:26Linda Holmes?

  Right.

• 16:26Aisha Harris?

  And then you're able to actually get those people to work together and put this thing together.

• 16:30Linda Holmes?

  Makes sense, though.

• 16:31Aisha Harris?

  It makes sense. You can see it. And it really does, I think, benefit. Like Ian McKellen, obviously, at this point, he's been doing this for decades. And Michaela Cole, I think, is still somewhat new to people. But having seen what I have seen of her, including I May Destroy You and Chewing Gum, like, I think both these actors have a ability and a willingness and desire to play and understand how acting can be fun. I mean, this is a comedy, but even though it does have those comedic moments, you can see how these two people can really gel together on screen. I think of even when we get to the point where they finally are sort of like seeing eye to eye, or when they have this banter.

• 17:13Aisha Harris?

  And it could easily get into like the twee, sort of like, oh, look at these two generations like coming together and. But it stays grounded. It stays true. And it also stays a little like kind of spicy because part of it is that they, neither of them like Barnaby and Sally.

• 17:29Linda Holmes?

  Those are, those are his kids. Yeah.

• 17:30Aisha Harris?

  Yes, his kids. And so that sort of like coming together out of both spite and also just like, ugh, these people, like, they don't understand art. Like, we understand art in a way. Like, that understanding how they get to that point, I think, is just so. It gels and it works. To that point, again, seeing people who were intended for these roles, that's the magic of that. That's what can happen when that, that does actually take place.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. And as the relationship shifts over the course of the film, it does change the, the tension of the film. And, and so just on the first watch, I will just say in a movie this talky, it's weird to talk about pacing. There is a certain lassitude that kind of creeps into the movie around, I had in my notes, it's around the 80 minute mark. Makes the show kind of starting to wind down, but it takes its time doing so. I don't think that's going to be an issue when I see this film again, because I'll know where the contours, you know, where it's headed. So I'll be along for the ride there.

• 18:21Linda Holmes?

  It's also not long. It's basically an hour and a half.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  It's basically an hour and a half or so. Yeah. I'm in for it, and I think the shifting of those tensions will register differently the second time I see it.

• 18:31Linda Holmes?

  Yeah, I agree with you. I think we all really liked this movie. And I do encourage you to seek it out. As we said, it's in theaters. I'm sure it will be available elsewhere later. The Christophers, just keep it in mind. We all liked it. Big recommendation from us. That brings us to the end of our show. Aisha Harris, Flynn Weldon, thank you so much for being here to chat about this movie.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 18:52Linda Holmes?

  Thank you. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio, and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find out more at plus.npr.org/happyhour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode is produced by Mike Katzif and Hufsefathama and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next time.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Thumbtack. Some tasks can feel easy, but home projects can bring second guesses. Is that noise normal? Is that water damage? Who should be called? That's where Thumbtack comes in. Just upload a photo or voice note, and it uses AI-powered search to match with the right top-rated local pro. So instead of guessing, there's clarity and confidence when hiring. For your next home project, try Thumbtack. Hire the right pro today.

• 19:58Speaker 00

  This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab with its original podcast, On Investing. Each week, you'll get thoughtful, in-depth analysis of both the stock and the bond markets. Listen today and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.