I had to sit with this film for a little while, The Book of Clarence. Much like Jaymes Samuel, I grew up watching those cinematic biblical epics from the mid-20th century. Watching The Ten Commandments on Easter weekend and Ben-Hur. Then, I even saw things like Monty Python’s The Life of Bryan, which I never truly connected with. In his second film after The Harder They Fall, Samuel takes on this style of film with The Book of Clarence. In it, the titular Clarence, a pretty down-on-his-luck man living in the same times as Jesus Christ, takes it upon himself to also claim to be the messiah to get out of a debt from an underworld figure but ends up in the sights of the Roman government. For me, this movie is very much a faith-based movie. It’s very entertaining visually, especially how it plays with the people we know in the stories and how we look back on those tales. LaKeith Stanfield plays Clarence and his twin brother Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Christ. RJ Clyer plays Clarence’s best friend Elijah – his road dog and ride or die. Clarence wants to be more than what he feels is nothing, something his brother constantly berates him for as he moves through the world, working through hustles like selling weed and trying to finesse folks out of money. Stanfield is the star of this film by completely commanding the screen when he’s on it. I’m amazed at how he’s so easily able to emote on screen, especially crying. It’s like this man can just cry on demand.
The film works well with its anachronistic method of storytelling. Omar Sy as Barabbas, who is also played like a radical Black Achilles, is a fun element. Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Zeke, was almost unrecognizable to me because I’m not used to him looking like an adult yet. Anna Diop is great as Clarence’s love interest, Varinia in the film. The film makes explicit connections between Clarence and his band of friends to Jesus and his Apostles as he continues his masquerade and gets closer and closer to the ideas of Jesus’ teachings. One thing that threw me off is that everyone in this movie is Black and dark-skinned, Black at that, and all the Romans are white. While I get the point and giving Black folks, especially those in the States, the Caribbean, and Europe, a Black biblical epic, as there were no Black folks in all those old films right now, for me, it’s a bit off-putting. I don’t know if replicating the methods of those in the past Hollywood is something we should replicate out of a feeling of erasure. Again, it’s making something more complex and full of many different people just to this dynamic of Black and White. With everything happening in the world currently in the actual place where this story is taking place in the past and no one looks like any of those folks that live there, it felt weird. People, we need to give up the idea of Black Jesus as a counter to White Jesus.
I did enjoy this movie, and I think it scratched an itch for many. I do wonder why this film is coming out in January and not Easter time like all those horribly made evangelical religious films that come out during that time because I think it would do even better then. Even with all I said, I think it would be nice if Black folks had our Christian Epic at Easter time like those other folks get those horrible Kirk Cameron movies. The Book of Clarence is definitely something I’ll watch again, and Samuel is making a nice catalog of work for himself in Hollywood.
Score: B
