I’ve been recommending The Christophers to everyone I see, and most of them haven’t heard of it. The movie is about an art restorer who is hired for a forgery job. The estranged children of a famous artist want to hire her to complete some of his unfinished paintings before he dies (without his knowledge) so they can sell them for millions. I loved it, and I wrote about it for Word on Fire.
Steven Soderbergh (of the Ocean’s 11 series) has a gift for heist movies. In The Christophers, he uses his storytelling gifts to show us a reverse heist. Here, once again, talented professionals pull off an impossible job, but this time, something is improbably restored, rather than stolen…
The action of The Christophers doesn’t take place in a glitzy, overstuffed Vegas hotel, where thieves have endless opportunities for misdirection. When Lori begins working with Julian, she visits him at his sprawling but shabby townhouse. They are alone, and the movie has the electric energy of a two-hander play in a tiny black box theater. If there are going to be tricks, they have to take the form of close up magic, where the audience can see everything and is fooled anyway.