"Steven Soderbergh has a certain superpower, not always bestowed on even the most important directors: a capacity to surprise. This is a restlessly productive film-maker, travelling light creatively, developing eclectic projects, shooting on digital, using intimate locations and getting the very best from an invariably classy cast. He has recently found himself in the UK and his latest London-set movie is terrifically exhilarating and funny, as bracing as a large vodka and tonic before lunch: fast, literate and funny with a key plot progression elliptically and unsentimentally managed."
"The Christophers is a movie about contemporary art and about what Alan Bennett in his play about Anthony Blunt called a question of attribution, and it puts new life and wit into the (perhaps) tiresome subject of movies on this subject: what has value and what does not. An irascible, dyspeptic old English painter called Julian Sklar, wonderfully played by Ian McKellen, is a once dominant but now outmoded and disliked artist of the School of London variety, living solo in a chaotic bohemian townhouse in the capital's Bloomsbury district; he is a man given to toweringly witty and cantankerous rants against everything that presents itself to his raddled senses."
"How has Soderbergh created a subversive turned reactionary Englishman so convincingly? The excellent screenplay is by an American: Ed Solomons, who happens to be the son-in-law of John Cleese. Until this moment, I had thought that Paul Thomas Anderson with Phantom Thread and Robert Altman with Gosford Park, were the only Americans able to fabricate haughty, echt Englishness. But Soderbergh and Solomons do it superbly well too."
"Opposite McKellen, Michaela Coel is at the top of her game as Lori Butler, a charismatically self-controlled former art student fallen on hard times. Coel contains anger and passion within an opaquely polite and unreadable manner as she is hired as Julian's assistant by his grasping adult children Barnaby (J"
A London-set movie delivers fast, literate comedy with an unsentimental, elliptically managed plot progression. The story centers on Julian Sklar, an irascible, dyspeptic old English painter who once dominated the School of London but is now outmoded and disliked. He lives alone in a chaotic Bloomsbury townhouse and launches toweringly witty, cantankerous rants. Michaela Coel plays Lori Butler, a self-controlled former art student hired as Julian’s assistant by his grasping adult children. The film focuses on contemporary art and on attribution, questioning what has value and what does not, while bringing new life and wit to the theme of art-world judgment.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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