Film Review: The Book of Clarence is a charming study in charisma and con-artistry

Elijah (R.J. Cyler) and Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) in The Book of Clarence

• The Book of Clarence 
• ★★★★☆
• Cinema release

Opening in Jerusalem in 33AD, The Book of Clarence (15A) stars LaKeith Stanfield as Clarence, a dope-peddling ‘man with no honour’ who whose twin brother Thomas (also Stanfield) is an upstanding apostle of Jesus (Nicholas Pinnock). 

Deeply indebted to Jedediah the Terrible (Eric Kofi Abrefa), Clarence spots an opportunity to set himself up in the lucrative business of miracle-working messiah – but Jesus is a hard act to follow, especially when the Romans, led by the brutal sociopath Antoninus (Tom Vaughn-Lawlor), start cracking down on rabble-rousing charismatics.

Written and directed by Jeymes Samuel, The Book of Clarence is a movie of very different and frequently clashing tones. 

On the one hand, Clarence comes on as a Life of Brian-like chancer who refuses point-blank to believe in God; on the other, it regularly places Clarence in situations that require him to act as a bona fide messiah, with results that cause Clarence to question his own lack of faith.

If you can live with these conflicting tones – the kind of mash-up we might get if the Monty Python crew had made The Last Temptation – then the movie becomes an entertainingly iconoclastic exploration of the latter stages of the gospels. 

LaKeith Stanfield is deliciously deadpan form as the morally flawed Clarence and the devout (but equally flawed) Thomas, and he gets strong support from Omar Sy as the freed gladiator Barabbas, RJ Cyler as Clarence’s sidekick Elijah, and a scenery-chewing James McEvoy as Pontius Pilate.