Review: 'The Christophers' lets director Steven Soderbergh work with a couple of gifted actors - Sir Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel

Director Steven Soderbergh is at his best when he makes his filmmaking look effortless — and in “The Christophers,” a smart two-hander about what’s real and what’s not in the art world, he keeps things deliciously simple, which lets us just enjoy the byplay of Sir Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel.

McKellen plays Julian Sklar, an irascible old painter who freely admits that he hasn’t made anything good in 30 years, and anything at all in 20. But somewhere in the unused uppermost floor of his London townhouse, there are a series of unfinished canvases, which were meant to be a third series of paintings inspired by someone from Julian’s past, named Christopher.

Julian’s children, Sallie (Jessica Gunning) and Barnaby (James Corden), think there’s money in those unfinished works, and they think they’ll only get it after Julian croaks. Their plan is to have another artist finish The Christophers in Julian’s style, then leave them upstairs until they’re “discovered” after Julian’s death. Sallie, an art-school failure, suggests hiring an old classmate, Lori Butler (Coel’s character), who’s a good painter and has studied and commented on Julian in the past.

To start the scheme, Lori gets a job as Julian’s assistant, and finds the old man to be a mercurial personality, selling himself for videos on Cameo and impulsively deciding to unearth the old Christophers and burn them in the backyard fire pit. What follows is a game of wills between Julian and Lori, each trying to suss out what the other truly wants.

The screenplay is sharper and more wily than what you might expect from a Hollywood veteran Ed Solomon, whose works include the “Bill & Ted” movies, “Men In Black” and the “Now You See Me” franchise. Solomon keeps the focus small, usually just putting Julian and Lori in a cramped studio room and letting their tension create the fireworks. One could stage this on Broadway and not lose any of the friction between the characters, or miss any of the clever dialogue that explores ideas of what makes good art and what kind of legacy an artist leaves behind.

Coel, creator of the acclaimed series “I Will Destroy You,” gives Lori a hint of melancholy as she tries to play against Julian’s moods and the children’s not-too-bright scheming. It may be the greatest compliment to Coel is that she stayed on par with McKellen, who digs into this juicy role and finds both the acid humor and the loneliness beneath it. Together, they make “The Christophers” an unassuming work of art.

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‘The Christophers’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, April 17, in theaters. Rated R for language. Running time: 100 minutes.