There have been some great films about painters — say, the documentary The Mystery of Picasso (1956) or Robert Altman’s entry in the Van Gogh biopic subgenre, Vincent & Theo (1990) — but by and large, the excitement of watching someone apply paint onto a canvas is more theoretical than actual. It is not for nothing that people fall asleep while watching Bob Ross reruns. 

This proves especially true in the lamentable case of the new Steven Soderbergh movie The Christophers. Here, we are presented not merely with a painter as a protagonist but a particular painter-protagonist whose inspiration, relevance, and even productivity have long expired. Played by Ian McKellen, British artist Julian Sklar was most recently in the public eye as a panelist on a British art-themed reality show called Art Fight — think American Idol, but with the contestants bearing canvases rather than microphones — and he has even taken to selling his work at fairs rather than through galleries.