Messiah satire loses faith in itself
THE BOOK OF CLARENCE (15) ★★★★★
Dir: Jeymes Samuel, 129 mins, starring: LaKeith Stanfield, Anna Diop, RJ Cyler
Review by Christina Newland
Jeymes Samuel does not appear to be interested in making “quiet” movies. And thank god. His first, 2021’s big-budget Netflix production The Harder They Fall, was an ambitious attempt to recast a spaghetti western with all-black characters based on real black outlaws sidelined from history, with an anachronistic hip-hop soundtrack and some major gunslinging action.
His second is even ballsier. The Book of Clarence satirises the biblical epic with a mostly black cast, punchy spirit, Prince needle drops and gut-busting comic results.
Clarence is a gambler, drugdealer and opportunist living in Jerusalem in 33 AD. After a series of failed get-rich-quick schemes, he sees the ascent of one Jesus Christ and decides that claiming he is the new messiah might get him out of debt.
LaKeith Stanfield, with laidback energy disguising his glancing shrewdness, is probably the only actor who could make us believe that a diffident, slouching street hustler might be the messiah.
He also plays Clarence’s identical twin – one of Christ’s apostles, and deeply embarrassed by his badly behaved brother.
Clarence goes about performing “miracles” – bringing a buddy “back from the dead” and using trickery to free a group of enslaved gladiators. He even goes to Joseph and Mary to find out how their son performs his tricks, only to be rebuffed when he is told that Jesus is the real deal.
Samuel’s world-building is lavish and transporting. Thieves and sandal vendors prowl the streets, the thunderous gladiator fights and CGI chariot races (surely a callback to Ben-Hur) are exhilarating, and problems such as poverty, racism and crises of spiritual faith in ancient Jerusalem are explored with tongue in cheek.
And the cast are excellent: Teyana Taylor plays Mary Magdalene, David Oyelowo is John the Baptist and James McAvoy is a delight as Pontius Pilate, in a white supremacy subplot.
But as Clarence’s success brings him pangs of conscience, and he wonders whether he should use his influence for good, the film grows too sincere and too fixated on the importance of salvation. It is at odds with the atheist satire it a first purports to be.
Samuel’s vision is bold, the comic asides mostly land (though I could have done without a literal light bulb appearing over Stanfield’s head to signify an epiphany) and he has good fun sending-up the uber-white religious films such as The Ten Commandments.
He clearly has strong ideas about race, oppression, the hustle to survive and the Christian faith, but is unable to tighten up his storytelling and make all those impulses cohere; he can’t seem to focus on one thing long enough.
Like the fake messiah at its centre, The Book of Clarence has rollicking, lively energy – but it is hard to believe in.
As Clarence’s success brings him pangs of conscience, it grows too sincere