Maynard goes to the movies
One Night with the King is a dramatized telling of the Book of Esther of the Old Testament. It is the story of how Esther, a Jewish girl of the Diaspora, came to be Queen of Persia (Iran) during the reign of King Ahasuerus (generally believed to be the historical King Xerxes, who reigned 486-465 B.C.E.). As Queen, she thwarted the plot of the King’s evil counselor Haman to murder the entire Jewish population in the lands under Persian control. (As any student of history knows, plots to wipe the Jews off the map are not a new phenomenon. Yesterday it was Haman; today it’s Ahmadinejad. The names change, but the song remains the same.)
The movie is rich and sumptuous, having been filmed at exotic locations in India, and with a large and impressive cast. The plot varies somewhat from the Bible, emphasizing the central love story between Esther and the King, and inventing an impending war with the Greeks and their quaint concept of democracy. So we end up with a bit of the Bible and a pinch of Hollywood, but it works nicely enough.
The production company, Gener8xion Entertainment, is managed by Matthew Crouch, son of Paul and Jan Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network. This project had seemed rather ambitious for this team, and I’d wondered whether they were capable of making a successful movie on this scale. I attended with low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised. The movie is amiable and enjoyable, although I can’t say it ranks with the greats. But it’s good family fare, carefully conveying the romance and conflicts in a kid-friendly way. It may even inspire some people to crack open the Bible and check out the real story.
For further details, read this Christian Spotlight review, including readers’ comments about why they liked or disliked the film.
Thanks for the good recommendation. I was not planning to see this film until it hid DVD, BUT THEN I read your comments and went to the Christian movie review link which you provided, so now I will go see it this weekend! It looks to be a very Biblically accurate telling of the story of Esther!
BTW, there is also a great ESTHER DVD, featuring Ben Kingsley as Haman, already available on amazon.com, and it is one of the better of a series of nice, made-for-TV Bible movies, which I can highly recommend, as well.
Maynard, you said that the movie “invents” a war with the Greeks. If I remember my history correctly, Xerxes did in fact invade Greece, I think twice (I know the Greeks beat the Persians at Marathon, but do not remember if Xerxes was king then), but he did fight King Leonidas of Sparta at Thermopylae (also to be a movie next spring, “300″ from the Frank Miller graphic novel). Just wondering if that was a misprint or something. I haven’t read the story of Esther in a very long time. But the movie sounds good, I’ll have to check it out.
Joel, to be clear, my point was that the movie references a war as a factor that motivates various characters, and thus explains certain relationships and conflicts. I don’t know exactly what wars Xerxes historically prosecuted, but this is not a factor in the Book of Esther itself. So you’ll understand Xerxes/Ahasuerus one way if you read the Bible, and another if you read history. This is not a criticism of the movie, but it’s worth understanding that what you see on the screen differs from the text in some details.
By far, the best account of the Book of Esther is ‘The Dawn: Political Teachings of the Book of Esther’ by Yoram Hazony. It’s a fun read (check the Amazon reviews).