The Book of Clarence review – hilar­i­ous highs, jum­bled lows

When Jeymes Samuel explod­ed onto the scene with 2021’s bom­bas­tic all-Black west­ern The Hard­er They Fall, it her­ald­ed the arrival of a fresh, intrigu­ing per­spec­tive. Dou­bling down on his yen for reviv­ing retro gen­res, Samuel’s sub­se­quent procla­ma­tion takes the form of the off­beat bib­li­cal com­e­dy, The Book of Clarence.

The open­ing shot cuts straight to the point with its epony­mous char­ac­ter nailed to a cross. Music booms dra­mat­i­cal­ly and Clarence (LaKei­th Stan­field) stares som­bre­ly into the cam­era with strong ​‘You’re prob­a­bly won­der­ing how I end­ed up here’ ener­gy. We jump back in time to see Clarence and his best friend Eli­jah (RJ Cyler) – a pair of street­wise hus­tlers who have just lost a Ben-Hur-like char­i­ot race to Mary Mag­da­lene (Teyana Taylor).

Things go from bad to worse as it tran­spires that Clarence is now in debt to local gang­ster, Jede­di­ah the Ter­ri­ble, and must pay him back or face death. Savvy as ever, Clarence notes the increas­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of a local man named Jesus (Nicholas Pin­nock) and the rock­star-like sta­tus of his twelve dis­ci­ples. He decides to gar­ner noto­ri­ety – and thus mon­ey – by becom­ing the 13^th Apos­tle. It’s a won­der­ful­ly wacky idea to explore on such a scale and Samuel attacks his premise with a heady blend of silli­ness and sincerity.

While com­par­isons to Mon­ty Python’s The Life of Bri­an seem inevitable, as Clarence is also very much not the Mes­si­ah, Samuel steers away from overt mock­ery (the valid­i­ty of Mary being a vir­gin at the time of her immac­u­late con­cep­tion notwith­stand­ing). Instead, he favours humor­ous car­i­ca­tures such as a thor­ough­ly unim­pressed John the Bap­tist (David Oyelowo) bash­ing Clarence both ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly for his disin­gen­u­ous claims of spir­i­tu­al conversion.

As his schemes bring him for­tune, Clarence begins to won­der if he is capa­ble of using his sta­tus to be a force for good. What Samuel explores here is engag­ing, yet, the scat­ter­gun approach of the comedic ele­ments threat­ens to under­mine any seri­ous intent. Scenes flick­er between joy­ful hit and bemus­ing miss and it feels as if the film has been thrown togeth­er in a man­ner that feels exper­i­men­tal. The script, mean­while, is too rudi­men­ta­ry to match the full satir­i­cal poten­tial of the premise.

Despite these nar­ra­tive issues, Stan­field weath­ers the uneven­ness. He is a ver­sa­tile actor, and his best roles, which include swag­ger­ing out­law Chero­kee Bill in The Hard­er They Fall, jad­ed tele­mar­keter Cas­sius in Sor­ry to Both­er You, to an Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed turn as con­flict­ed FBI infor­mant William O’Neal in Judas and the Black Mes­si­ah, play on moral duality.

The Book of Clarence builds on those strengths, as it’s a film which demon­strates the same like­able flair, verve and artis­tic com­mit­ment as its pre­de­ces­sor. And yet, while its orig­i­nal­i­ty con­tin­ues to cement Samuel as one of the more intrigu­ing new film­mak­ers in the last few years, it’s too dis­joint­ed to tru­ly hit home. Whether a gag-filled gospel tale is everyone’s cup of tea or not, this should at least leave audi­ences curi­ous to see more of what’s inside Samuel’s head.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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