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There’s Nothing Else Like The Book of Clarence, for Better and Worse
Even if it doesn’t work, there’s something admirable about how at ease Jeymes Samuel’s new film is with its own erratic rhythms.
2021’s The Harder They Fall cast an array of actual historical figures — cowboys who were born into slavery, mixed-race outlaws, and pioneering lawmen — as characters in a hard-charging fictional story of betrayal and revenge. Unlike his brother, Clarence is an avowed non-believer — a sleepy-eyed pragmatist whose primary concerns are caring for his mother Amina (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and securing the affections of the beautiful Varinia (Anna Diop), the sister of local gangster Jedediah (Eric Kofi-Abrefa). But the shaggy comedy falls away as the film progresses, and as Clarence decides to solve his predicament by pretending to be a messiah himself, and fundraising accordingly with the help of Elijah, Dirty Zeke (Caleb McLaughlin), and Barabbas (Omar Sy), a gladiator he frees from slavery.
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