The Christophers sees Sallie Sklar (Jessica Gunning – The Magic Faraway Tree), and brother Barnaby (James Corden… thankfully, not too annoying, for a change), in need of money, knowing their faded artist Dad, Julian (Ian McKellen – The Critic) has some highly-sought-after paintings in his attic, which he’s long forgotten about, known as The Christophers.
However, they’re not quite finished, so they need artist Lori (Michaela Coel – Mother Mary) to get hold of them, take them home, finish them off and they’ll all split the cash. To do this, the plan is to send her in as a carer-cum-general dogsbody. Sorted, right?
Trouble is, Julian is a crotchety old loner, scraping a living by making crappy Cameo videos for fans, and knows EXACTLY of what they’re worth, hates his children and wants Lori to destroy them.
Given that both she and he are artists, she has her reasons for not being able to stand him, so it should be a slam sunk, right? After all, he’s old and frail so won’t put up much of a challenge…
The Christophers is like a stage play onscreen, with Ian McKellen at the absolute top of his game, even at 87, as there’s a gorgeous soundtrack, and they spar together well, with great writing, such as:
- Lori: “What keeps you up at night?”
- Julian: “Cascading memories of bad things done to me since childhood”
I need to watch this again as it’s very wordy, and Julian waffles a lot about many topics. Alas, even though it was reasonably busy on a weekday afternoon, like Normal, both disappeared after a week. I figured they might come back briefly, since this week it’s half term, so plenty of weekday slots are still taken up by kids films.
The Christophers is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 100 minutes
Release date: May 15th 2026
Studio: Neon
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Rating: 8.5/10
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Producers: Iain A Canning, Jim Parks
Screenplay: Ed Solomon
Music: David Holmes
Cast:
Julian Sklar: Ian McKellen
Lori Butler: Michaela Coel
Sallie Milton Sklar: Jessica Gunning
Barnaby Sklar: James Corden
Esme: Tilly Botsford
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.