SHOWING UP

Online ticket sales end at 5:00 PM. Remaining tickets will be available at the door starting at 7:30.

A sculptor preparing to open a new show must balance her creative life with the daily dramas of family and friends, in Kelly Reichardt’s vibrant and captivatingly funny portrait of art and craft. It is a deceptively simple drama about an artist’s life. 2022, USA, 107 minutes, rated R for brief nudity

After the film, stay for discussion with Daly Flanagan, Executive Director of Rockland Center for the Arts.

Community Partner: Rockland Center for the Arts
RoCA members receive the member ticket price of $9 online or at the door.

“What initially seems to be a slice-of-life drama eventually reveals itself as a paean to the difficulties, and rewards, of making art.” – The Atlantic

“The story of Lizzy (Michelle Williams), a sculptor in Portland, Oregon, who’s preparing to exhibit at a local gallery—is an instant classic of a life in art.” – The New Yorker

“This, in movie form, is one idea of what it’s like to make and think about art; its meaning can seem to pass through our skin, a mysterious vibration.” – TIME

“Not since Amadeus has there been a movie so rooted in the realities of working and making art, and all the torture and pleasure that comes with such a trade.” – The Wrap

“It’s sometimes been said that making art is thinking made visible. In her latest film, “Showing Up,” Kelly Reichardt, the director of 2019’s First Cow and virtuosa of slow cinema, turns her thoughtful attention to the act of creation itself, rendering both its transcendence and mundanity with equal curiosity.” – Washington Post

“The film is certainly not the first to hold the creative process up to scrutiny: its agonies and ecstasies, false starts and alchemical transformation of abject failure into — well, more interesting failure. But it is one of the best, in a medium that consistently gets art dead wrong, too often forsaking patience for the moviemaking shorthand of showing the flash of genius as, say, Jackson Pollock discovering drip painting literally overnight, in one alcohol-and-insomnia-fueled burst of discovery.” – Washington Post

“Anything creative requires labor, whether the end result soars into the stratosphere or falls flat on its face, and that’s the part this portrait of an artist wants you to recognize. The finger of divinity touching your forehead may grant you an idea. It’s the callouses on your hands that make it a reality.” – Rolling Stone

“Critic’s Pick.” “This is the fourth movie that they’ve done together (their first was Wendy and Lucy), and it’s a joy to witness how perfectly aligned their work has become. Together, Reichardt and Williams — with little dialogue and boundless generosity — lucidly articulate everything that Lizzy will never say and need not say, opening a window on the world and turning this wondrous, determined, gloriously grumpy woman into a sublime work of art.” – The New York Times

“Deftly, Showing Up leaves unresolved the familial, creative, professional, and interpersonal matters at its core, staying true to its vision of an artistic environment perpetually caught between modest comfort and precariousness.” – Slant

“This beautifully acted, expertly modulated film is a work of such enveloping gentleness that even the worst crises are simply absorbed into the fabric of life and work. While the ending might have been corny in a less subtle director’s hands, here it’s quietly restorative. We don’t deserve Kelly Reichardt.” – Hollywood Reporter

“A film that could have settled for being a masterclass in technique, but instead goes deeper, exploring questions of artistry, authorship, legacy.” NPR

“Had The Christophers just been a cross-generational punch-up, the sort of flinty showdown designed to throw off pleasurable sparks, you’d still walk away content. It remains a conduit for two of the best performances you’ll see all year.” – David Fear, Rolling Stone

“The Christophers is largely a comedy, but it’s also about all that we gain and lose with age, and about how we sometimes need young people to bring us back to ourselves.” – Stephanie Zacharek, TIME

“Having lost the inspiration that guided him to greatness, Julian is an artist who can no longer paint, and Lori is an artist who has lost all confidence in there being a place for her work in the larger world. For all the undercurrents about fame, commodification, and reputation that flow through The Christophers, at its core is a more plaintive lament about what it feels like to love something that doesn’t love you back.” – Alison Willmore, Vulture

“Go see The Christophers. Show up, and support a tiny, talky experiment that has no relationship to IP or sequels or box-office projection. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s also never, as Lori grudgingly notes about Julian’s work, uninteresting. And in this cultural moment, that’s an authentic win.” – Elizabeth Weitzman, Time Out

“The Christophers is a work of criticism that deftly distinguishes different approaches to criticism.” ­– Justin Chang, The New Yorker 

“Brims with hilarious dialogue, lightly satirical observations of a culture that treats art as a commodity, and satisfying payoffs to a number of story elements planted early on.” – Seth Katz, Slant Magazine

“In the end, this film about artists becomes a work of art in its own right. The more you look at it, the more its many components reveal themselves to you.” – Chase Hutchinson, The Wrap

“Ian McKellen plays Julian Sklar, a sardonic art legend who meets his intellectual match in frank preservationist Lori Butler (Michaela Coel). In a test of wits and wills held mostly in a single-setting, Soderbergh pushes both characters to return to their former passions through philosophical conversations that reflect his own career.” – Robert Daniels, Screen International

“It bats about ideas pertaining to art, commerce, ownership and legacy with dexterous aplomb and boasts two equally superb leads who make the material crackle.” – David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

“The Christophers is a talky, at times incredibly funny, comedy drama with plot reversals that make it feel like it’s on the verge of a thriller. It doesn’t end up there, at least not strictly, but it’s unpredictable enough to never make us entirely sure just where it’s heading.” – Benjamin Lee, Guardian

“There’s no room for anything shy of genius in The Christophers, a crackling original drama about artistic legacy in all its facets, directed by Steven Soderbergh , from a script by Ed Solomon (No Sudden Move) and starring two top-notch English actors of wildly different backgrounds and styles, Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel, at the top of their respective games.” – Peter Debruge, Variety

“With Ian McKellen in superbly crotchety form and Michaela Coel exuding chilly cunning, it’s further proof that Soderbergh remains one of American Cinema’s most inimitable, and adventurous, auteurs. – Nick Schager, The Daily Beast