‘The Book of Clarence’ Review: Jaymes Samuel’s Personal Jesus Needs to Separate the Wheat from the Chaff

The Book of Clarence is British writer and director Jaymes Samuel’s third feature film and first departure from Westerns after 2013’s They Die By Dawn and 2017’s The Harder They Fall. Like most Biblical epics, the film is set during the time when Jesus was at his apex in Roman occupied Israel. British actors play the Roman soldiers, but this film diverges from the standard and casts Black people to play the Israelites. Atheist and ineffective hustler Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) and his buddy Elijah (RJ Cyler) need to make money within 30 days to pay back Jedediah (Eric Kofi-Abrefa), the local pimp, who will kill Clarence if he does not. (Doubting) Thomas (also Stanfield), who thinks Clarence is worthless, rejects Clarence’s pleas and refuses to introduce him to Jesus. So Clarence decides to pretend he is the Messiah, earn some money and prove to respectable hairdresser Varinia (Anna Diop), Jedediah’s little sister, that he is somebody so she will fall for him, but when the Romans start rounding up all the local messiahs, Clarence is in more trouble than ever. Only God could save him…

The Book of Clarence is a dream come true for anyone who loves old school Biblical epics and ever exclaimed, “Jesus was a Black man!” The backbone concept is solid with Romans as sadistic, bad apple cops stopping locals, demanding identification, and frothing at the mouth with hopes of being able to carry out extrajudicial executions. Many people have yearned for well-known Biblical characters to have African accents, curly-hair, and dark-skin.

If the charismatic and smooth-talking Stanfield was not playing Clarence, the character would be a bit unbelievable. Somehow, he is simultaneously a constant screwup and untrustworthy, who constantly puts himself in danger, but filled with potential and great at everything he tries, including fighting with a sword. Clarence dominates the first hour ping ponging between schemes so Samuel has ample time to introduce his characters. He devotes a bit too much time establishing the vibe of the neighborhood: the forbidden gypsy territory rampant with terrorizing tykes, the gladiator ring, the whorehouse with little to no nudity or sex, the warm lit beauty shop, the apostles’ open concept dorm, the drug den that resembles a hookah lounge and the respectable homes that welcome Clarence and find him endearing, not alarming, to signal his future turn to repentance. The Book of Clarence rests on the idea that Clarence needs to find his faith, but Clarence is not as interesting as many of the supporting characters.

Mary Magdalene (the underutilized Teyana Taylor) is reimagined as a badass, chariot street racer. Mary (Alfre Woodward) and her husband Joseph are still together and proclaiming their son as a product of immaculate conception, but they differ and bicker hilariously over whether Joseph always believed. Barabbas (Omar Sy) is still a revolutionary who wants to revolt against Roman rule, but he is also a gladiator who claims to be immortal and shares some traits with ancient Greek mythological demigods. John the Baptist (David Oyelowo) seems to have a penchant for shade praying and drowning less than sincere prospective converts. At the eleventh hour, Jedediah becomes a proponent of local solidarity and departs from his archetype as the villain. A couple of Brits get to have fun and steal some scenes. James McAvoy as a saucy, jocular Pontius Pilate provides some much-needed variety after a plethora of one-note Joffrey wannabe Romans. Also without spoiling Benedict Cumberbatch’s role, he is unrecognizable, and it is the funniest, long-running punchline in the film.

At its core, the story follows the same narrative beats of a film like Ben-Hur though it’s facing a ton of blasphemy accusations and backlash from Jay Z and Beyonce conspiracy theorists concerned about their alleged involvement with the illuminati. Clarence is at the center of the action with Jesus at the margins, and Jesus’ presence increases proportionate to Clarence turning into a true believer. Initially Jesus’ face is obscured, but as Clarence becomes more upstanding, Jesus becomes more visible to the viewers. Samuel even shoots the film in Matera, Italy like many old Biblical epics with famous directors from Pier Paolo Pasolini to Mel Gibson, Matera being  more affordable and accessible to filmmakers than contemporary Israel.

Samuel never finds the flick’s rhythm, in terms of balancing drama, comedy and satire. There does not appear to be a logical backbone governing which aspects of the Jesus story will be told like a traditional Biblical epic and what portion will be devoted to laughs. God bless Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who plays Clarence’s mom, for delivering lines that are supposed to sound deep and meaningful in the early part of the movie, but do not make sense.

One discernible pattern almost makes the narrative irredeemable. Some women were depicted as more treacherous than Judas (Michael Ward). Samuel changed the scribes and Pharisees, all men, to an unhappily married couple, especially the judgy wife, as the ringleaders who tried to stone the adulterous woman in John 7:53-8:11. Also a woman kisses Clarence and seems to betray him instead of Judas. Judas makes fun of Mary Magdalene’s cooking. Even contemporary scholars acknowledge that Mary Magdalene was a high-ranking disciple, and Jesus would not have allowed only the woman to do all the cooking for everyone—see Luke 10:38-42 when Jesus encourages women to stop doing housework to worship him. So Samuel’s story has logic when it comes to women and modernizes the Bible to make the movie more misogynistic and follow imagined traditional gender norms than the Bible. In this twenty-first century flick, good women exist to stay home, be encouraging and do housework. The men in their lives define them. If the women are of a certain age, they are mothers and wives. If they are younger, they are either whores or good girls. The romance was filled with atmosphere but lacking in any specifics why Varinia would be into Clarence except Stanfield’s looks. Mary Magdalene is a brief and neglected exception that falls in a gray, nebulous middle-ground.

The first half is a bit of a slog, but if you can stay awake, it picks up momentum as Clarence converts himself with his Messiah schtick. He starts becoming the Messiah whom he wants to believe in. Clarence is the star of many of the best-known New Testament stories about Jesus, including the crucifixion, which makes this film more of an Easter movie. Jesus and Clarence never meet on screen, but their closest adherents have crossed paths with the two.

If Samuel had played it straight instead of also trying to put his own soulful spin on Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the movie may have been seamless instead of uneven. Samuel should have just made a Black Jesus movie, and the best jokes could have remained. Nicholas Pinnock resembles Denzel Washington, and his performance will give you shivers. He balances the other-worldliness with a grounded quality. Samuel borrows from The Matrix to makeover the miracles with Jesus stopping stones like Neo freezes bullets in mid-air.

The Book of Clarence needed a less indulgent editor and a woman reading the script, but Samuel deserves credit for finally making a Biblical epic that looks closer to the historic Hebrews even as it messes with the formula. While Stanfield is not the first Black actor to play Jesus on the big screen, he may be the most famous. His predecessors, Jean-Claude La Marre in Color of the Cross, Mai Music in Revival!, and activist turned actor Yven Sagnet in The New Gospel, may have been noted for cinematic history, but a movie designed to appeal to a broader audience means one step closer to removing people of color from the margins.

Grade: C+

Sony Pictures will release The Book of Clarence only in theaters on January 12.