A mainstay of the London art scene since his starry breakout in the creative explosion of the 1960’s, Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) has drifted into a cluttered, self?imposed seclusion. His two estranged children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning) enlist Lori (Michaela Coel), a young painter and sometime-forger, to pose as a prospective assistant and gain access to a fabled series of unfinished canvases Julian has buried deep in his home studio, in a deceptive bid to secure an inheritance for themselves.
The Garden Cinema View:
Steven Soderbergh’s London phase continues with, surprise-surprise, a quasi-heist/con-woman film. Except here we’ve left the casinos of Las Vegas for CSM graduates and one semi-cancelled old artist mouldering away in a fantastically realised old Bloomsbury townhouse. But Soderbergh’s art-forgery setup is really just an excuse to indulge in a battle of wits and insults between two powerhouse actors – a fantastically bitter Ian McKellan and a steely Michaela Coel. As with Linklater’s Blue Moon, sometimes the simple pleasures a watching great performers go toe-to-toe with a sharp script can make for the most satisfying watches.
