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Film Curious is a movie review podcast that takes a step back from the constant media consumption to discover and ponder great films across genres and time. A podcast where we let our intrigue guide us and are not afraid to explore whatever films pique our interest.
To all you film lovers, casual theatergoers, at-home movie watchers, and streaming scrollers out there, think of Film Curious as your gateway into any and every kind of movie. One that doesn’t gatekeep but doesn’t shy away from respect for the craft either. So, take a dip, the water’s fine…
I really don't have a critique of it,
I loved it.
You're wrong. No.
I actually thought would be
one of the most shocking things I've heard
from Pete. I loved it.
I've ever.
Hello,
and welcome to film Curious Ashley here.
And I'm joined by Pete.
We're here to talk about
a lovely little film, The Christophers.
It is written by Ed Solomon, directed by
Steven Soderbergh,
which the two of us did not know until.
I mean, you.
I think you told me that you knew
just before you went
that it was directed by Steven Soderbergh,
and I did not realize
until the credits, actually.
Yeah, they don't promo him as like, it's
a Soderbergh film.
They don't do that at all.
Which is strange because he's done
almost everything.
I mean, he's
he has such a crazy filmography.
He's got there's a reason, but.
That's the reason. Yeah.
But like
Black Bag, Erin Brockovich,
the Ocean's 11 and 12.
I actually just watched Side Effects
recently,
and then magic Mike, the magic mix.
Sure. So he's.
He's done it all. Yeah, yeah.
And this film is starring Ian McKellen
as Julian Sklar,
I think is, if I say the last name Sklar.
Right.
If you don't, I don't.
I shouldn't have to say who.
You know, Ian McKellen is like,
if you don't know that he's
Gandalf and Magneto, like,
you don't know who he and McKellen
is, I don't we're living under a rock.
Then we've got bigger problems.
Michaela Coel as Laurie Butler,
and you might have seen her.
I mean, I know her from two TV series
with Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You.
She's actually going to be in a 24
upcoming film starring
opposite in Hathaway in Mother Mary,
so I'm super excited for that.
Then you've got.
Some near you.
It's not yet, I think, wide release.
It's okay. Not by me. No. Unfortunately.
All right.
It's out. It's out near me right now.
I was going to go see it tomorrow
or Thursday.
I'm hoping that it.
Yeah, it's going to be soon.
I think wide release is.
It's not out just yet. Wide.
Here we go. Okay, okay.
I'm looking it up right now.
Actually,
because that's David Lowery's new film.
Oh, here we go.
Okay. Yeah.
So I guess wide
release is going to be April 20th.
Oh, I could see it tonight by me.
So I think this past weekend
it just showed up.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
It had a limited release for a bit
and now it's wide.
So yes. To this.
You could probably go see Mother Mary,
which I will go see this week.
Yeah.
And then as playing
the two children,
as James Corden, as Barnaby
the comedian, I don't know,
I just know him from Carpool Karaoke.
I don't know what actual
night show James Corden does.
Does he still do that anymore?
I don't know if he does any more.
I don't even think so.
That's the only thing I can like
off the top of my head
knows what he does, what he does.
And Jessica Gunning as Sally.
I'm not familiar with her.
The story is the children of a once
famous artist
hire a forger,
which she's not really a forger.
This Laurie Butler, Michaela Cole's
character, she's more like a restorer.
She's like reconstruction or restores art.
Right.
Was like her.
She she.
She she sold.
Yeah.
She sold.
Forged, you know, art that she'd forged.
I mean, that is that is a spoiler, though.
We find that out later on
that she is, in fact,
a forger to complete, to complete.
So I didn't find that as a spoiler,
to be honest.
I was like, she clearly is me.
She's had to have done this before.
Before, you know, nobody hires somebody
to be like, you can do this, right?
And without knowing.
Yes. That's true.
I mean, they put it in this synopsis here,
so maybe it's not so.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so they, they hire her to complete
some unfinished and long
abandoned artwork of
character so that they'll have the money
for the inheritance when he dies.
That's the the basic plot of it.
But I think really, this movie is driven
by McKellen
and Cole's interactions
and their their dialog.
And yeah, I think that's
really the shining feature of this movie.
I enjoyed it, I really don't have
a critique of it, I loved it.
You're wrong. No.
I think that would be
one of the most shocking things I've heard
from Pete.
I've loved it ever.
This is extremely my type of movie
because it's really a play
on, you know, on 2 or 3 sets
that's put into film version.
You can easily
see this adapted into a stage version.
And the reason that I think that you've
you've heard so little about Soderbergh
as a director is because he's he's
not there to be like, I directed this.
He's never been literally like that
kind of a director.
You know, he was flashy, like with Ocean's
11 and stuff, Ocean's eight,
because it was a flashy movie, you know,
Ocean's 11 because it is a flashy movie.
For this, he is just letting the camera
be smart, efficient,
and just letting these two
actors, McKellen and Cole,
own your attention
for, you know, for the entire runtime.
But but in saying that
there's a danger in doing that,
I think where you underestimate
what the director is doing
because he makes it look so easy.
And I'll give you one example,
it doesn't really give anything away.
I'll give you an example.
There is a sequence
where our act, our lead actress
Michaela Coel, is walking by
billboards of
what would be Maclean's handwriting.
And then she is looking at an item.
And on the back there is Sam handwriting,
and it's because you just saw it
right in front of you,
huge on the screen that your mind
is so easily able to be like,
oh, that's his handwriting, where,
you know, she gets it from a third party.
And you could have been like,
I don't get it.
Did she write that on there or did
this person write that on there?
But it's it's that little visual tell of
here's, here's his handwriting
because you're going to need that in 20s.
Right. Yeah.
You know, so you never have a hesitation
of like, well, who wrote that?
Because that this movie
can have moments like that because
there is, you know, some faking and some,
you know, some stuff like that going on.
It's, it's it's a different
take on a heist movie in so many ways.
You know,
there's there's that aspect to it as well,
where it's an open heist movie
where the person being robbed is aware
and you're aware and everyone is aware,
but you're still watching
what could be a heist movie
as it takes its turns.
And how is she going to pull it off?
We know what the ultimate goal is,
we think.
But then, you know, and I, I kind of love
that about how she plays the character to
she's a very reserved character,
but we'll have moments
where she's front facing,
you know, to Julian.
And then, I mean, I love the
the scene where she's it's her
first being interviewed as the assistant
and she's putting together the.
Yeah, the dehumidifier for him.
Yeah, yeah.
And you know, she's like smiling
and trying to be polite and be like,
oh sure, I'll help you. No problem.
And then, you know, a second
he turns his back to like,
go get something out of the room.
You see that?
She puts her hands on her head
and she's like, oh my God.
Like, yeah, losing her mind.
So I loved how Michaela Coel played
those moments of, like,
she reveals a bit of herself
or how she's actually feeling,
which, you know, it's nice
that they eventually get a rapport
where they are honest with each other.
And I think that's also a bit
of the point of like
two artists kind of inspiring each other,
pushing each other.
McKellen feels like he forgets,
you know, how to create.
He feels he can't do it anymore.
And she
she gives him that little bit of freedom
that he needs to be like, I don't have to.
There's no pressure here, you know?
I'm not actually finishing, you know,
the Christopher, as are his works
that he can't finish.
That kind of been stuck on
for 25 years, right.
I think it's like the,
you know, the artist feeling
all of this pressure
to create something incredible.
But when she gives him the freedom
to be like, well, let's make this bad then
to spite
his children where, you know,
she's in on it with him,
I think then, yeah, kind of unleashes
his freedom.
And then, you know,
she gets kind of inspired by him again
to, to work on her own stuff.
So it's, it's a really, like, beautiful
look at being an artist, I think.
And what a perfect pair of assholes
Corden and Jessica
Gunning are just from the minute
they're goddamn clothes.
Everything about them,
you know, immediately
these are going to be there,
going to be so obnoxious.
And they're excellent at it.
And there's a lot of fun
to be had with them, too.
And an interaction with a painting
that that younger the as a young girl.
Maclean's daughter, again
played by Jessica
Gunning, painted herself.
There's just so many little bits
for you to enjoy.
And there's a little,
you know, a little payoff over here,
a little moment over here.
They're always challenging one another.
But I want to say there's there's
so many movies where like, this ends.
And again, this isn't like
giving a spoiler or anything, but
this isn't one of the movies
where I like at the end of the movie,
they like High five on the beach
or some shit like that.
They have their own moments
of finding some clarity
and some closure,
but it's it's never it's not overplayed.
It's not overly sentimental. Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
We're not gonna, like, go have a sob fest.
I really appreciated that because
it's even in line with the two characters.
You know, these two characters
really are an overly sentimental people.
I would
argue that they were, but yeah, but they.
They they hide it. They shut it down.
Because we have, you know, one of the,
one of the lines
from Michaela is again, out of context.
I never stopped, I stopped sharing. Right.
Which says everything about her,
you know, from her body
movement, everything to the way she is
with other people.
You know, she's not rude.
She's not mean. She's nothing like that.
But she's it's at an arm's distance,
politely, at an arm's distance.
And Miquelon is more at a
non polite
arms distance because not only does
he push away, but others just one.
Don't they want to be pushed away?
You know.
He's purposefully abrasive almost.
And you know he's.
Yeah I think it's the line of like no,
I asked you questions.
I just wasn't interested in the answers
or something along the lines
of that of like, he's not paying attention
to the answer, you know, he doesn't. He?
He claims he he he doesn't care
what the answers are about other people
and Kellan. And this is just amazing.
Meanwhile, like this man running up
and down stairs, I was concerned for him.
He's in great shape,
but I was like, McAllen. What?
What are you doing?
He's totally fine.
There's a great other.
He's he's made a lot of like,
little nice small movies.
It was a Sherlock Holmes
film recently that he did.
Not recently
it was me within like the last ten years.
It was about an elderly Sherlock Holmes
whose memory is failing him.
And it's just wild to see someone
who's been doing this for this long,
and they're
putting out some of their best work,
like now.
Still, it's pretty crazy.
It seems. Like he is able to do it.
Yeah, it sounds like he seems like he has
so much passion for what he's doing.
Like he did a phenomenal job
with his performance
and he's captivating and he's like, it's
just a stream of dialog from him.
Also, like he just goes in tangents
that are unbelievably entertaining
and where meanwhile, like Michael Cole is,
is supplementing him
with with her facial reactions and
with her body mannerisms and everything.
I mean, this movie was hilarious,
actually.
Yeah, it's a dark comedy,
but it's funny as hell.
It was. It was hilarious.
And then even just McKellen doing the
the video,
the message, the cameos.
Yeah, that was.
My favorite, my favorite comedy
bit of the whole thing was when he knows
that his kids are trying to rip him off
and that, you know,
everyone knows each other and they just
they show up at the door
and he just messes with them,
you know, saying, oh, who's
what's the girl's name and blah, blah,
blah, and just, you know, introducing
the exact thing that they want to steal
and then everyone having to act, or
at least the two acting like it's nothing.
It was just a lot of fun.
He was just having it looked like
he was just having a lot of fun with this.
And it does feel like, again,
my my biggest attraction to it
is that it's
it feels like you're watching a play.
So I've never gotten to see McKellen
in a play.
Not personally.
I've gotten to meet him in person,
which is wild, which I'll remember that
forever.
But like,
I never got to see him perform in a play.
So it's nice
when you get things like this
where you kind of get to experience it
without experiencing it.
I really do think that like at some point
this will find an adaptation, you know.
You stage adaptation.
Yeah.
Because I mean, you got like, well,
like a cast of like four
that you definitely need 5 or 6
if you include the roommates in the flat.
And that's fine.
You can do that.
You need a set.
Really? Yeah.
You need a set, maybe a rotating floor
so you can go to the outside.
It's all very doable.
And the dialog and everything is so snappy
and so much fun and so quick
that, you know, I think it would be a hit.
So we'll see.
We will say.
Yeah, how are you going to get the the
two houses that he has and the wrong door.
Oh it's, it's
a great bet. It's a great big.
How's that door?
I love his voice.
He's always had that,
you know, incredible soft.
It's the voice.
I can do it, but I won't do it.
But, yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's.
I just
I had a lot of fun watching this movie.
It felt like a movie, you know,
like ones that people claim
they never make them like they used to.
And they do.
They just don't make a lot of them.
And you have to find them.
Well, I'm hoping this
this has a wider release.
I think, like, technically it's still.
I mean, Sonneberg has done his
the last number of things of his career
are smaller releases,
smaller budgets, these these little films
that live no Sudden Move
I think went straight to HBO.
I think.
Finally correctly presence was
I loved presents,
but that was, you know, small scale film.
I think it had a wide release
in big quotes, but it wasn't, you know,
I don't remember it being something
that many, many, many people talked about.
But he's just quietly going along,
amassing
this just wonderful category catalog of.
Work magic. Michael stands.
Yeah.
No, I mean, that's the thing
that's that's you make you huge.
Like that.
Was like Black
Bag was one of the best years of 2025.
It just it just. Yet to see it.
I have to actually.
Yeah it's it's
one of the coolest thrillers you know
it's actually horny as hell
which is great because we've got,
you know, Cate Blanchett
in my class. Bender in there.
But yeah, he's just kind of.
Oh, Kimmy was really good.
That was with, Zoe Kravitz.
With Zoe Kravitz.
That was another really good one.
He's just been on this role of, like,
these smaller framed films
that are excellent. Just a blast to watch.
So yeah, Hasan, keep that going forever.
And my god, Ian McKellen.
What a one of a kind.
One of a kind. Yeah, for sure.
I'll tell you something.
That's it won't
it won't spoil it, but I'll tell you.
So if you're interested, you can go.
Look, there's a painting at the end
that you can buy a poster
for at the neon shop right now.
Oh, you can, you can actually get it.
Yeah.
Oh that's awesome.
Yeah,
I ordered it last night. When I got home,
I was like, I have a feeling
they're going to be selling this.
So I looked and you know what it is.
It's the one at the end. It's the,
you know.
Yeah, yeah.
With the signature and all that
and yeah, they, they're selling
like little 18 by 24 posters of it
I think.
And it was so available as of yesterday.
So when this is going up,
but if you like the movie
and you wanted something from it,
it was the first thing that I thought of
like, oh, this would be gorgeous to get.
So you can also buy $130 paint set.
So you know, you've got
you've got your options.
Got it has neon doing the,
the a 24 thing these days where.
They neons been doing this. Yeah.
Like they are.
They sell usually a print
for almost every release.
It'll be 18 to 24.
Some of them have been 24 by 36.
Like no other choice was a full 24 by 36.
This one is.
Yeah, 18 by 24.
Limited edition of 125.
So it's 40 bucks.
45 bucks.
Just to grab that then.
Yeah, yeah.
Where I will put it. Doesn't matter.
Figure it out.
Figure it out later.
I have. Like figure it. Out later.
We have like four pieces of art right now
that need a frame
and need to go off on the wall.
And I was like, that's it.
We're cut off until we put these in frames
like we cannot purchase more until.
No idea what we talking about.
Yeah. No idea what you're talking about.
Yeah, that sounds great.
But definitely go, go see this film.
It was worth it.
Hopefully
it's still trickling its way out.
I'm hoping because of the I think
it's like a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes.
And people are loving this.
So hopefully it keeps kind of expanding
a little bit as they
they see that people love it.
So that's my hope for it
because I want more people to see it.
And I'm really glad I saw it,
even though I really had
I don't think I even saw a trailer for it.
I just.
I only saw a trailer for it at the theater
that I eventually saw it at,
which is the NZ in in Florida.
It's the only good theater
in Florida that I know of.
So yeah, now mine was just a playing ad.
Well,
I mean, it's the same sort of deal for me.
I don't I don't know
if it's the only good theater in my area,
but it's the only small indie theater
that was playing it.
And it's actually I'll shout out the
the Sarasota
Film Society and Burns Court Theater,
because if it wasn't for them,
there would be so many smaller movies
that I didn't get to see.
And they
they keep their theaters really nice.
But it is.
You are tiny,
like you are in a room of a house.
Basically. It feels like. Oh, really?
There's like three, there's three theaters
and one of them is I, it's not that big.
Like I don't know how many people
it could possibly hold.
And it's like, not,
no, there's no stadium seating.
These chairs are comfortable.
Like they clearly put
new regular chairs in.
There's
no reclining or anything like that.
But I think they keep it really nice
and they keep they,
they put the small movies in the theater
and the prices are really good too.
So they're not like,
they don't overcharge.
I think they charge like ten bucks
a ticket.
If you remember, it's $6 a ticket.
Oh, it's ten,
it's ten for NZ and 1050 as a member.
They only have one theater,
which is it's pretty large
and they're actually doing an upgrade
to they, they raised X amount of money
and they're going to be installing a 70mm
projector in there.
Yeah very nice. So yeah that's great.
So and that's another thing to
if you think you don't have it showing,
but you try to find some kind
of film society or little smaller theater,
indie theater because they'll likely
be playing those things.
So I'm glad that I finally found
Burns Court and this,
this little film society to be a part of.
So thank you to them.
Otherwise I would have not have gotten
to see the Christopher's.
Hey, guys.
Ashley here.
Thanks for listening to film. Curious
if you enjoyed this episode.
There's plenty more to come.
I'll be reviewing new theatrical releases
and new streaming as much as possible,
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Thanks again. See you real soon.