The Christophers: Gandalf, Art and the Inheritance Trap

Lede

The Christophers turns art into a holy object, then lets inheritance walk in wearing muddy shoes.

Hermit Off Script

The Christophers works first because when I see Gandalf – sorry, Ian McKellen – in the cast, I already expect some spell to happen. Not the dragon-and-ring kind. The human kind. The voice, the face, the old theatre thunder suddenly dropped into cinema like Shakespeare has rented a modern London room and refuses to leave. That opening monologue alone felt like a memory test I would have failed halfway through, and that says more about my brain than the script, but still, there it is. The film feels emotional because it knows art is not just canvas, paint and clever people making clever noises. It is struggle. It is ego. It is decline. It is the ugly little truth that money often stands above everything with its shoes on the table. I have always had respect for art and artists in all the places where I was clearly not born with talent. I admire what I don’t possess, probably because some part of me still wishes my genealogy had splashed my existence with a little more gift and a little less unpaid aspiration. Yes, now I sound like I have started my own monologue of downfall, but that is the danger of watching a film like this. McKellen makes it feel less like a film and more like a theatre play smuggled through a camera. It is not really cinema for popcorn hunger. It is cinema for artists, almost-artists, failed-artists, and people still searching for the courage to say they have a voice. And behind it all sits the present joke: AI is now sold as the thing that can make everything, copy everything, imitate everything, while the one thing it cannot truly manufacture is the lived wound of human creation. The machine can mimic the brushstroke. It cannot pay the price of the hand.

THE CHRISTOPHERS – Official Trailer

The children of a once-famous artist hire a restorer and former forger to access unfinished canvases, hoping the work can become inheritance before the artist disappears from the world. That is not a plot. That is probate with better lighting.

The Christophers: Probate With Better Lighting

Steven Soderbergh’s The Christophers is a 100-minute comedy drama about a once-celebrated painter, his unfinished canvases, and the children who suddenly discover deep respect for art when inheritance starts breathing through the frame. Ian McKellen brings the old-theatre thunder as Julian Sklar, Michaela Coel brings quiet steel as Lori Butler, and the plot politely asks what art is worth while everyone else checks whether the answer can be sold before the funeral flowers arrive. It is sharp, theatrical, and slightly wicked – a film where creativity has a pulse, money has a stopwatch, and the soul keeps being asked for paperwork.

Cast and credits

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writers: Ed Solomon
Genre: Comedy drama, black comedy
Main cast: Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, James Corden, Jessica Gunning
Composer: David Holmes
Production company/studio: Department M, Butler & Sklar Productions
Runtime: 100 minutes
Release year and platform: 2025 festival title; UK cinema release on 15 May 2026

What does not make sense

• The heirs want authenticity, but only if a forger can deliver it before the financial weather changes.
• The artist is treated like a difficult old god until his unfinished work starts to smell like money.
• The film asks what art is worth, while the plot keeps checking whether the answer fits inside an inheritance plan.
• McKellen brings theatre-sized gravity to a room where everyone else keeps measuring the soul in resale value.
• The AI shadow is sitting quietly in the corner: everybody wants the result of a lifetime without waiting for a life.

Sense check / The numbers

1. The Christophers runs for 100 minutes, carries a 15 certificate in the UK, and was released by Picturehouse in UK cinemas on 15 May 2026. [Picturehouse]
2. Rotten Tomatoes listed the film at 95 per cent from 142 critic reviews and 86 per cent from more than 100 verified audience ratings when checked. [Rotten Tomatoes]
3. The main credited cast includes 4 named leads: Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, James Corden and Jessica Gunning. [Doha Film Institute]
4. The UK Government’s copyright and AI report was published on 18 March 2026 after a consultation that ran from 17 December 2024 to 25 February 2025 and received 11,520 responses. [GOV.UK]
5. The U.S. Copyright Office said on 29 January 2025 that generative AI outputs can be protected only where a human author has determined enough expressive elements, and that mere prompts are not enough. [U.S. Copyright Office]

The sketch

Scene 1: The monologue
Panel description. An old painter silhouette stands under a theatre spotlight, while a younger restorer listens and 2 heirs hold a stopwatch.
Dialogue:
Painter: “You wanted art?”
Heir: “Can it invoice?”
Restorer: “I brought patience.”

Scene 2: The inheritance
Panel description. Unfinished canvases sit in an attic labelled “legacy” while gloved hands attach price tags.
Dialogue:
Heir: “Finish his soul.”
Forger: “In his handwriting?”
Lawyer: “Before probate, please.”

Scene 3: The machine
Panel description. An AI vending machine offers “instant genius” while a human artist holds a brush beside a blank canvas.
Dialogue:
Machine: “Prompt for masterpiece.”
Artist: “Try living first.”
Patron: “Is living billable?”

What to watch, not the show

• The art market turning memory, grief and talent into movable assets.
• Families treating legacy as a delayed bank transfer.
• AI vendors selling style without apprenticeship, biography or risk.
• Cinema using theatre’s old power when language carries more weight than spectacle.
• Prestige casting that could have been lazy, but survives because McKellen and Coel can actually hold the room.

The Hermit take

Keep the spell McKellen casts.
Question every system that calls copying creation once money signs the frame.

Keep or toss

Verdict: Keep / Toss
Keep the performances, the questions about art, and the human ache.
Toss inheritance worship and copy culture wearing a creator’s coat.

Sources

• IMDb title page: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34966562/
• Picturehouse film page: https://picturehouses.com/movie-details/000/HO00017764/the-christophers
• Guardian review: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/may/14/the-christophers-review-ian-mckellen-michaela-coel
• Reuters interview/report: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/mckellen-coel-spar-soderberghs-the-christophers-2026-04-21/
• Rotten Tomatoes listing: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_christophers
• Doha Film Institute credits: https://www.dohafilm.com/en/contents/66dcaee0-1327-4d27-b284-b0c8689bab5c
• GOV.UK copyright and AI report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-and-impact-assessment-on-copyright-and-artificial-intelligence/report-on-copyright-and-artificial-intelligence
• U.S. Copyright Office AI copyrightability note: https://www.copyright.gov/newsnet/2025/1060.html