The art world continues to be Hollywood’s new favorite setting. Following Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist, an art thriller released last month, and Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, a 2025 film about an art heist, comes The Christophers by director Steven Soderbergh.
The new film, set to be released April 10 in the US and May 15 in the UK following its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last September, stars Ian McKellen as a once celebrated artist who becomes the target of an art forger played by Michaela Coel.
Coel is best known for creating and starring in the British sitcom Chewing Gum and the HBO/BBC series I May Destroy You, a dark comedy-drama about a young writer who tries to rebuild her life after being raped. The latter series, inspired by her own experience of sexual assault, was nominated for nine Emmys, winning two, and won five BAFTA awards; it was heralded at release as one of the greatest television shows of all time.
Written by Ed Solomon, who penned Soderbergh’s 2021 feature No Sudden Move, The Christophers’s plot sounds intriguing. Here’s the synopsis, per a press release: Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) was once a star of London’s 1960’s and 70’s pop art explosion, but he hasn’t painted in decades and has been broke for years. His two estranged children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning), desperate for an inheritance, hire Lori, an art restorer and former forger (Michaela Coel), to pose as a prospective assistant in order to access 8 unfinished canvases Julian has buried deep in storage. Her plan is to complete them, then return them to storage, where they are to be “discovered” upon Julian’s death.
