Jerusalem, 33 AD.  Struggling for money, Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) and Elijah (RJ Cyler) bet against Mary Magdalene (Teyana Taylor) that they could beat her in a chariot race through town, but gypsies thwart their lead causing them to lose the race.  Clarence then hears about a traveling prophet, Jesus Christ (Nicholas Pinnock), but John the Baptist (David Oyelowo) and Clarence’s brother, Thomas (LaKeith Stanfield in a dual role), are not very keen on welcoming Clarence into the fold.  Scorned by this, Clarence begins to promote himself as a rival prophet to bring in money, but the Romans are none-too-keen about this religious uprising and under the order of Pontius Pilate (James McAvoy), all prophets are to be brought in for trial. 

Writer/Director Jeymes Samuel secures theatrical distribution through Columbia Pictures for his biblical-set, musical dramedy, The Book of Clarence, reuniting him with many from his directorial debut with Netflix, The Harder They Fall (2021).  The film premiered at the BFI London Film Festival but was delayed until 2024 for theatrical rollout where it received little fanfare in its odd-placed January frame.  Running 129 minutes, the film is a bold swing and a hard sell from Samuel, but it retains his popping style and commitment to bring a fully realized and robust environment to screens; this time with Peter Walpole leading the production design. 

For about as long as there has been film, there have been films about the Bible.  The Book of Clarence takes the framework of the story of Jesus and uses that as a springboard to tell Clarence’s story, broken into three chapters with title cards stylized as if it were one of the canonical Gospels as told by Cecil B. DeMille.  It very much is not so, and the film takes many liberties to chart Clarence’s rise and fall as a would-be 13th apostle, but it is an unfortunately hollow effort.  He focuses too much on Clarence and does not bring Thomas and his doubting nature in to really spark his argument about how religion fits into our modern lives. This is possibly out of logistical reasons given Stanfield’s double duty, but neither the role nor the film are dependent on this showy bit of casting which limits what Samuel can explore and it prevents the film from hitting the philosophical targets it is clearly aiming for. It is not that Samuel does not seem to be particularly interested in using the template to reflect our modern times by crafting a moral fable, but rather he has put himself into a creative corner where the only way to move narratively forward is to lose a grip on the messaging.  

What makes matters worse is that the narrative ends up being quite thin and it struggles under the weight of the film’s runtime. Despite this, Samuel keeps his audiences engaged because he again proves a steady mastery over tone and style. As he did previously with the Western, here Samuel is adopting the affectations of the swords and sandals epics; the difference is that this feels more like a dull lampooning of a genre more so than a homage. The frames are full of vibrantly colored costumes courtesy of Antoinette Messam and engaging settings that have a surprising tangible look about them so that it is immediately recognized as, and reminiscent of, the biblical epics from the Hollywood heydays in a striking rebuke of the tendency to rely entirely on digital locations. If in fact this was shot in majority on a total digital soundstage – the crucifixion scenes are clearly digital, but Samuel keeps the tone light so that it is almost part of the joke – it looks better than most films with budgets that certainly far eclipse this scrappy sophomore feature. 

Stanfield is also transfixing as he navigates this world that seemingly has no place for him, welcoming us in to join and follow him through his plight. Rejected by his brother to join Jesus and unable to move enough product to stay in the good graces of his bosses, he decides to take control of his own destiny and become a prophet seeing the alms which the public are all too eager to offer up to Jesus. He mimics the man’s speech and demeanor, traveling around the town “healing” Elijah from his “blindness” or “lameness,” whatever the boy pretends to act out. Samuel can easily get away with this blasphemy because not only was the film underseen in its brief theatrical window, but Clarence is distinctly not Jesus. This is not Martin Scorsese focusing on the human component of the Messiah in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). Rather, it can be seen as an indictment of the mega-churches and faith healers that are no better than carnival grifters working the same angles albeit with a different vocabulary, invoking God instead of the Spirit Realm.    

The performance struggles though because, like with the entire film, it does not go far enough on the page. Caught somewhere between not as funny as a Mel Brooks film and not as musical as Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), The Book of Clarence never quite finds its identity. Samuel is reaching for something that really could have shown how religion has been transformed from something that could and should bring peace into something that is instead used to manipulate and misconstrue. This is shown in an absolutely bonkers supporting role from Benedict Cumberbatch as Benjamin the Beggar, but the foil is ruined as it does not do enough to show the contrast between Benjamim and Clarance and Jesus. Samuel, possibly under the influence of his studio executives who were confident enough in the pitch to greenlight but may have had some second thoughts as the daily poured in, seems to have rewritten the script in tandem with production all while feeling a little scared of potential blowback instead of just going for it. The intention is there but the film takes too many liberties to please the devout while playing it too safe to really break out from the shadow of its roots and prove its noble thesis.