October 31, 2006

One Night With The King – Part I

Last night I went to see One Night With the King at a local movie theater. I musta been living in a cave the last couple of months because until two days ago, I didn’t know this film existed.

In case you and I were sharing that cave. . . this is a movie based loosely on book of Esther – and I mean loosely. Actually it’s based on the novel Hadassah: One Night With the King by Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen which is based loosely on the book of Esther. I’m sure you can tell where this train is headed - so if you really, really liked/loved the film OR you are still planning on seeing it STOP READING NOW!

One Night With the King is a chick flick with a feisty one-dimensional heroine who relies on a mystical pendant and her reading ability to charm the aforementioned King.

It could have been so much more.

The book of Esther never mentions “God”. But it subtly reveals and celebrates His Divine Hand in the destiny of one Jewess Queen and His chosen people. It is a powerful story that can and has stood the test of time. I’m all for artistic license but editing out many of the Divine Hand’s best moves and giving them to Esther cheapened the storyline and God.

In book of Esther, the king can’t sleep so he is read to from the daily chronicles – which doesn’t take a biblical scholar to tell us that boredom was and is a time-tested cure for insomnia. In a true "truth is stranger than fiction" - the king happens to hear the account of Mordecai’s foiling of an assassination attempt on his royal personage and realizes that Mordecai was never rewarded for this act. Coincidence, I think not. Nor does it stop there, in a brilliant bit of divine timing, the king asks Hamaan (the bad guy) what he would suggest done to honor the person who has saved the life of the king at the same moment that Hamaan is fixin’ to ask the King’s permission to hang Mordecai. The king goes first and Mordecai is honored by the man who plans to kill him. Wow!

In the film, Esther is the one who shoves the papyrus at the king telling him that Mordecai the Jew saved his life and was never honored for it. Less than wow. . .

Why did the filmmakers feel the need to re-write???
Why did the filmmakers feel like Esther needed a short introduction to the king before her actual ONE NIGHT with him????? (Which leads me to the question – Why did you name this One Night With the King when you had Esther meeting him through the Eunuch’s manipulations months, weeks, days before her big debut?)
Why did Esther's big risk scene have to be shot with her soaking wet?
(She's risking her life in a wet t-shirt, oops, a wet gown. . . )
And what’s up with the pendant, huh?

Ok, biggest question. . . WHY DID YOU MAKE THIS FILM??
I’m just asking.

No comments: