Review: Esther and the King (B-)

Esther and the King is based — as you might expect — on the Old Testament book of Esther.  As part of the “Liken” series of short films, Esther and the King combines a scriptural story with songs and dancing, along with a shorter run-time (about an hour) that won’t stress short attention spans.

Esther and the King is not a top-tier LDS production but fulfills its modest aims at providing family-friendly Bible-based entertainment.  Adults may feel the level of humor (and the lack of depth and subtlety in the narrative details) makes the film too juvenile in its attempt to appeal to younger kids.  However, that is Esther and the King’s chosen tone and target audience and it sticks to them.  From that context,  the film is mostly successful.

Although the credits of Esther and the King makes clear that the filmmakers are taking “artistic license” with the story of Esther — mainly adding in musical elements — the film is actually very faithful to the scriptural text, even in the smaller details.

The basic story is the same: King Ahasuerus needs a new queen and all single maidens in the kingdom are invited to “audition”.  Esther is a young Jewish woman who is encouraged by her uncle Mordecai to meet with the king without revealing her heritage, and ends up being chosen to be the new queen of the land.  She continues to hide her religion from the Persian royalty until anti-Semitic tensions — led by Haman, one of the royal princes — rise in the kingdom and her people are threatened.  Will Esther be willing to confess her heritage to the King — putting her own life directly at risk — to save her people?

The film skips over Chapter 1 from the Book of Esther entirely — no mention of what happened to the previous queen and why the king is looking for a new one — and the details of the ending are different (no final battle between the Jews and Haman’s sons).  However, those are the only major differences between the story in the film and the Old Testament text.

As with the Bible, the key plot point of the film occurs when Esther decides to meet with the King to plead for her people, but realizes that approaching the king uninvited risks instant death.  The film portrays this part of the scriptural text accurately with the appropriate tension, although undercuts it by having scenes earlier in the film where Esther also approaches the King uninvited, seemingly without the same risk.  (In the film, Haman is shown to approach the king uninvited seemingly without danger as well…)

Judging low budget LDS productions by their low budget may not really be fair.  However, Esther and the King has some genuine production problems that start early:  in the opening credits the name of the production company Lightstone Productions is misspelled “Lighstone Productions”.  Misspelling the name of their own company — literally one of the first things viewers see as the film starts?  Not a good first impression…

The orchestral soundtrack to the film is also mixed a little too high in many scenes, drowning out the singing in many cases making the lyrics hard to hear.  While not vitally important to the enjoyment of the film, these are both basic production issues that — low-budget or not — should have been addressed before release.

Esther and the King is anchored by The Only True And Living Queen of Mormon Cinema On The Earth, Summer Naomi Smart as Esther, who does her own singing as well.   The other top performer is Jeff Stevens as Haman, who is also solid acting and singing.  His performance is over-the-top, but it’s a controlled over-the-top (if that makes sense) which hits the right notes for this kind of family production.

Outside of those two, the other actors (and singers) are more hit and miss.  The music quality is decent, with some clever lyrics (when you can hear them).  However, some of the supporting characters behind the two leads are not good enough singers to give the songs what they deserve.

King Ahasuerus himself is a minor character and not very notable.   The film hints at developing an actual romance between himself and Esther, but doesn’t spend enough time with the two of them interacting together to make this a meaningful component of the film.  (The implication from the text is that they didn’t, in fact, spend a lot of time together as true husband and wife — she was the favorite concubine, in essence, and only saw the king when called upon.)

One “plot hole” that the film shares with the text of Esther:  after Esther meets with the king (and Haman) at a private banquet, shares her religious heritage, and pleads for her people against Haman’s plot, the king turns against Haman in wrath.  For what, exactly?    In the film (and the Bible) Haman is the one who suggests to the King that the Jews are bad citizens and should all be killed, after which the King agrees and gives Haman full authority to carry it out.  And yet, after Esther announces that Haman is the one responsible for plotting to kill the Jews, the king acts as if this is a complete surprise — as if Haman’s “plot” against the Jews wasn’t done in broad daylight with the assistance of the king himself!

(True, the king is the king and doesn’t have to accept any official culpability if he doesn’t want to, but in the context of the story — where the king is portrayed as one of the “heroes” and Haman the clear “villain” when the differences between them are minimal, this disconnect comes across as a little ludicrous.)

Esther is a popular story from the Old Testament;  narratively, it is straight-forward and easy to understand, and it’s one of the few sections of the Bible named for and featuring a female lead.  However, many people struggle with how to view Esther in the proper perspective in the first place.

Is Esther a “feminist” Bible story?  One can argue that Esther is just a woman who sells herself as a concubine to a rich (and non-member) husband for her own self-interest.  (Opinions vary on how old Esther might have been at the time — possibly as young as 14.  In that case, Mordecai would have been the primary guide to Esther’s marriage and destiny — not exactly a shining example of a “feminist icon”.)

One can argue that the original queen, Vashti, who refused to disrobe in front of the king and his friends and suffered the consequences, is more of a feminist role model than Esther; however Vashti’s story is absent from this dramatization of the Book of Esther entirely.

The story of Esther also seems to directly contradict some general gospel principles — even some of the generally derived lessons from other sections of the Old Testament:

(1) Unlike Solomon, who was condemned for marrying outside the covenant and letting his wives influence his worship (along with modern LDS admonitions to always marry within the faith), Esther marries outside the covenant and apparently escapes any judgment for doing so.

(2) Esther successfully hides her Jewish heritage until she deliberately reveals it to the King — presumably this means she had been keeping the customs and traditions of the Persians rather than the Jews while living in the palace.  This is in direct contrast to Daniel, who is praised for continuing to follow the commandments and customs of the Jews while living amongst foreign nobility, even at the risk of his life.

(3) The subtext of the “fair young virgins” being brought to the king to see which ones “pleased him” (see Esther 2) implies all of the young women ended up sleeping with the king, with Esther being chosen as the “top concubine” among all the women of the King’s harem.  Depending on your interpretation of ancient marriage covenants, this implies either pre-marital sexual activity (or something approaching statutory rape), and/or large-scale polygamy with Esther becoming one of many concubines to the King, and lucking out in becoming disproportionately favored among all the other women.  Either way, not necessarily living situations for which modern LDS young women would aspire.

Being devoted to simple, family-friendly entertainment, Esther and the King ignores the sexual context of the “audition” of all the young maidens at the palace (and any idea that the other women not chosen are still the king’s concubines, living together in a harem).  The film gives small “feminist” touches to Esther as a character:  she’s a mature adult who is in charge of her own destiny and who wins the heart of the king by “being herself”.  (She even brushes the hair of her servants, instead of having them wait on her.)

Esther and the King portrays the heart of the story accurately — focusing on Esther’s bravery and faith — without attempting to dive into any lascivious (but probably accurate) details of the context of Esther’s position in the king’s court.

Outside of Esther’s primary narrative, Esther and the King tries to frame her story with beginning and ending segments set in modern times.   These segments feature a young LDS girl named Amelia who wants to invite a non-member guy living in their home to attend church services, but feels too nervous to do so.   (The film refers to this guy as “George” but never explains who he is and why he’s living in their house since he’s not a family member.)  Amelia’s mom suggests fasting and tells the story of Esther who fasted for three days to gain the spiritual strength to fulfill her mission.

Amelia fasts, then invites George to come to church with her and her family.  He commits after hearing that Amelia is going to sacrifice eating the breakfast he’s prepared.  (This is kind of a cheat, since the point of fasting is to gain spiritual strength — not to directly influence others by telling them you’re fasting for them.  But, anyway…)   This segment isn’t as well scripted and developed as the main story, and ends up being superfluous to the main story.

Nitpicks aside, Esther and the King is decent entertainment that won’t overstay its welcome.  If you like the story of Esther at all, you’ll probably like this production.

Final Grade: B-