A former artist turned art forger, Lori Butler (Michaela Coel) poses a deceptively simple question at the heart of Steven Soderbergh’s new film, The Christophers: does it really matter who paints an artwork?

She is commissioned by the adult children of renowned painter Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) – Barnaby (James Corden) and Sallie (Jessica Gunning) – to “complete” the last of his unfinished works, The Christophers.

Once complete, their real intention is to sell the series of paintings for a fortune once their father dies. Lori, who once endured a scathing critique from Julian that stalled her own career, reluctantly agrees to take on the job.

The film is, on the surface, a pleasingly crafted piece of art-world intrigue. But it raises questions about pleasure, authenticity, creative ownership and race that, ultimately, it seems unwilling to interrogate closely.

Read more: The Mastermind: this art theft heist offers a compassionate character study

The premise centres on a real psychological phenomenon called essentialism – the deeply human habit of treating objects as though they possess a hidden inner nature that no copy can replicate. Psychologist Paul Bloom explores this in his book How Pleasure Works (2010). He argues that what we enjoy about art is inseparable from our beliefs about its origin.

In a series of experiments in 2012, psychologists demonstrated that people judge original artworks as more valuable and pleasurable than........

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