The Book of Clarence – Film Review
by Frank L.

Director – Jeymes Samuel
Writer – Jeymes Samuel
Stars – LaKeith Stanfield, Omar Sy, Anna Diop

“Struggling to find a better life, Clarence is captivated by the power of the rising Messiah and soon risks everything to carve a path to a divine existence.”

Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) is the drug-dealing, twin brother of Doubting Thomas (who is also played by Stanfield). However, Thomas’s doubting has taken a more powerful hold on Clarence who is an atheist. The action takes place in Jerusalem in 33 AD. Clarence is in a fix as he owes money to the local mobster chief. He incurred the debt in the opening scene as he lost a chariot race to Mary Magdalene. The race is the opening sequence and the world of Ben Hur is magnificently reincarnated.

“So we’d be watching all of these movies and I’ll be marveled by them. But I was drawn to the stories that were Bible adjacent, so not necessarily the ones about the Bible, but where the Bible was running alongside them, like Ben-Hur,” Jeymes Samuel

The various chapters of the story are introduced as if they were additional gospels to the four attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. There is an intermingling of well-known biblical stories as Clarence decides even though an atheist being a Messiah might prove a profit-making business doing miracles on the side.

”Yeah, this is Jeymes Samuel’s Ben-Hur. It being my first foray into the Bible era, I had to throw everything. I wanted to throw in chariot races, I wanted gladiator fights, I wanted to throw a nightclub scene. The hoods are in the building having a party.” Jeymes Samuel

What is valuable in the film is that all the main characters are black. The only white actors are the Romans. This is a timely liberation of the pale-skinned biblical figures who populate medieval and more recent paintings and who still are predominant in contemporary editions of the bible. Well-known scenes such as walking on water and the crucifixion duly make an appearance. However, the whole madcap experience is difficult to assimilate.