Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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In the terrific new film The Christophers, 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.
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 Glenn Weldon.
And I'm Linda Holmes. And today we're talking about the Christophers on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining us today is our co-host, Aisha Harris. Hello, Aisha. Hello, Linda. So The Christophers begins with Michaela Cole as Lori, 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 Lori.
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 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?
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?
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Chapter 2: What is the premise of the film The Christophers?
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 rarefied and erudite and, can I say... Can I say tote baggy? 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 on stage you might miss a lot of, most of, if not all of what Cole 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 really formative 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 is 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 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. Yeah.
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 screwing it up all the time. And so much of this film takes place in the kind of planes of Cole's face that you just keep leaning in because you're waiting for her to...
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 like slight what McKellen's doing because he was 85 when he made this he's a grand dame of theater he could have 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
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.
Yeah, I think I agree with you. Ayesha, 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.
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Chapter 3: Who are the main characters in The Christophers?
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 oceans 11. It's not flashy. And what I love about it is that quietness, that stillness and that,
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.
Yeah.
Just the right amount of him. And also he's leaning into like smarm in a way that works. Yeah. Really well.
Peak deployment, yes. Peak deployment of James Corden.
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. Exactly. Yeah. 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 Laurie eventually comes to understand that she's dealing with this old man who is nearing the end of his life. And even though he's... 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 and sort of said, none of this is your responsibility. It's okay. Let me give you a hug, blah, blah, blah. Mm-hmm.
She just understands that she's 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 cost something, I think he says. Something along those lines, yeah. She understands that element of it.
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Chapter 4: What themes does The Christophers explore?
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 the 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.
Chapter 5: How do the performances of Michaela Coel and Ian McKellen compare?
This isn't Albie. 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. 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 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern 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.
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. 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 30 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 is much younger and also has their own feelings about this person, even though they've just meeting them for the first time. But 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.
That's the natural progression. You know that's probably where it's going to 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 Glenn, I have seen this now twice. And the second rewatch was Right. you see handheld so you can move easily through the room. You can move over, you know, past their shoulder.
You can follow Ian McKellen. You can follow Michaela Cole as there. 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. Cluttered, but nice, contemporary. Everything has a place, but it still feels kind of overwhelming.
Yeah, no, I just really love this movie. It's just exactly what I want from both these performers and from Soderbergh.
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Chapter 6: What role does the cinematography play in The Christophers?
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 and it could easily get into like the twee sort of like oh, look at these two generations coming together.
But it stays grounded. It stays true. And it also stays a little kind of spicy because part of it is that neither of them like Barnaby and Sally. Those are his kids. Yes, his kids. And so that sort of coming together out of both spite and also just like, ugh, these people, they don't understand art. We understand art in a way.
That understanding, how they get to that point, I think it's 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 does actually take place.
Yeah. And as the relationship shifts over the course of the film, it does change the tension of the film. 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.
It makes a show of 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. It's also not long.
It's basically an hour and a half.
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.
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, Glenn Weldon, thank you so much for being here to chat about this movie.
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