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March 14, 2007

One Night With The King
Length: 122 min
Rated: PG
Distributor: Gener8xion Entertainment
Release Date: 2006-10-13
Starring: Tiffany Dupont, Luke Goss, John Rys-Davies, Tommy Lister, Omar Shariff, James Callis, John Noble, Peter Oâ€™Toole
Directed by Michael O. Sajbel
Produced by Stephan Blinn, Richard J. Cook, Matthew Crouch
Written by Stephan Blinn; Mark Andrew Olsen and Tommy Tenney (novel)

Last night I watched One Night With The King. At first I wasn’t sure if I liked it. I felt it reminded me of too many plays that I had attended, complete with perfect, smiling people, camels, and a busy marketplace. I wanted to see the depth of emotions and the complexities that we all have. It was a slow start to a decent movie.

As the film unfolded I was drawn into the love story between King Xerxes and Esther, and appreciated Esther’s bravery in defying cultural traditions to save her people. Based on the novel â€œHadassahâ€, the movie follows a young Jewish woman by that name (Tiffany Dupont) who lives in ancient imperial Persia during the reign of King Xerxes (Luke Goss).

Orphaned as a child, she has been raised by her kind, wise uncle Mordecai (John Rys-Davies) who works as a scribe in the kingâ€™s palace. Political turmoil in the Kingâ€™s house forces him to cast aside his queen and launch an empire wide search for her replacement. Despite the fact that the Jewish people are at the bottom of the Persian totem pole, the beautiful Hadassah is conscripted into the kingâ€™s harem as a candidate to become queen. There she trains for her future queenly duties under the rough but encouraging eye of the intimidating royal eunuch Hagai (Tommy Lister). For her protection, Mordecai gives Hadassah a new name, Esther, and encourages her to keep her Jewish identity a secret.

After winning the kingâ€™s heart with her simple beauty and generous spirit, Esther is chosen as queen. Meanwhile Haman the Agagite (James Callis), who sports a 500 year-old blood grudge against the Jews, slowly connives his way up the Persian political food chain. When he gets close enough to the top, he spins a plot that pits the empire against the entire Jewish nation. It falls to Esther to save her people at the risk of her own life by revealing her true heritage to her husband king.

I believe this is an important film in that it puts faces and real-life dilemmas with the stories. It shows that issues like courage, love, hatred, betrayel have played out for generations.

I was surprised to see some errors, such as a “candidate” for the queen being hoisted on to a western side saddle, not yet invented at that time.

But it’s high story and it’s thought-provoking, and worth the time to watch.

RTF gives it 3 stars.