The Book of Esther

Seeing that this movie was made by Pure Flix Entertainment, a Christian movie production company, we thought we would see an accurate portrayal of this story. At the beginning of the movie, a disclaimer was shown stating that the producers have changed some details of events for dramatic purposes, which is understandable. Unfortunately, they lied. They didn't change SOME details - they changed almost ALL the details. The only similarity this movie has to the Biblical record is the names of the principal characters.

I'm extremely disappointed in David A.R. White as the director and writer Timothy Ratajczak (who has written many excellent Pure Flix movies) who are responsible for this piece of trash. I've always held White and his company Pure Flix in high regard. To see a Christian production company, who one would expect to be Biblically true to actual events chronicled in the Bible, produce a movie about Biblical events and completely change the details is inexcusable.

With their "dramatic license," this movie is completely unrecognizable as the story of Esther. The Veggie Tales episode on Esther is more accurate than this movie can ever pretend to be. I'd recommend watching that instead.

This entire movie could be summed up as someone who doesn't like, or understand, the book of Esther; so they decide they will plug their own invented story into the backdrop of a Biblical setting. I might expect this from a secular movie company that arrogantly thinks their storytelling is more relevant and interesting than a Biblical account that has stood for thousands of years; but to see a supposedly Christian movie making company do this is mind-boggling. They are suppose to have respect for the source material, but so far they have been the ones to butcher it more than any other Esther movie I've come across.

The production values are rock bottom. The acting is terrible. That would be forgivable if they actually made an effort to faithfully convey the account of Esther based on the Bible and history.

They've tried to invent a story they probably think is more relevant to a modern American audience. The entire point of the Biblical story is lost, and it's full of anachronisms from modern American culture and values.

Rather than an accurate picture of ancient middle eastern culture where Esther could be killed for entering into the presence of the king uninvited, we see a modern American woman who suggests that things are going to have to change once they are married to be more of an equal partnership; to which the king aquieseced somewhat meekly.

Rather than an accurate story about a woman who is taken to be a concubine for a despotic king, in which they may only have on sexual encounter with her never seeing the king again unless he decides to marry her; it is replaced with a modern American tale of a woman who is getting older wondering when she will meet the right man, and involves her insisting to the king that they will have to wait before they are married before they will have any kind of physical romance.

If you want to make up your own story, with it's own values and message, then go do so - just don't force this pablum into a setting that claim to be based on the Biblical book of Esther. Although they do have a disclaimer about some things being changed, what they don't tell you is that nothing of significance about the original story has been retained aside from names.

I am saddened to say that this film is absolutely atrocious. I watched it a couple of months ago at a Youth Bible Study, and still cannot fathom the atrocities that I saw. Before I begin, I'd like to say that I am a fan of PureFlix and respect the fact that the production company does its best to make high quality Christian films as a means to spread the Gospel. However, the 'high quality' thing I just said up top extends millions of miles away from what one sees on 'The Book of Esther.' It is one of the worst movies I have seen in my entire life. (And I've watched crappy TV movies from both Lifetime and Sci-fy channel.)

To make my list of reasons easier, I will number them: 1. The CG is laughable. 2. The acting is as if the producers hired volunteers off the street instead of legit actors. 3. The props looked as if they were bought at Walmart - no lie. (e.g. Queen Vashti's wig looks like it was bought at the after-Halloween clearance section from Walmart. 4. All actors had different accents. (e.g. Queen Esther sounded like she came straight out of Los Angeles, which really threw me off). 5. Slight inaccuracies to the biblical account here and there, but nothing too major.

All in all, this movie is horrible. I know that budgets are not high enough to turn the movie into a big action-y straight-out-of-Hollywood movie, nor do I expect it to be, but I believe PureFlix could have done way better than this.

The only reason I give this movie a score higher than 1 is that it made me laugh repeatedly. It was that bad. Production values were down to nil, and boy does it show. Oh, and you know the kind of acting where it's been rehearsed so often as a group that everybody knows what's going to be said next, so that everybody looks at the guy with the next line as soon as the current guy finishes his line? Yeah, that's the kind of movie this is. I absolutely couldn't believe somebody agreed to put it up on the big screen. It was totally the stuff of a high school play, okay, college, but no more. Again, hilarious.

Now, the cast. When I first saw Hadassah (Esther) I thought, sure, pretty face, but completely lacking any hint of an actual Jewish bloodline, as typically there are certain distinguishing features. (Nor does much of anyone else look Persian.) Also much older than the 'girl' of the biblical narrative and, accordingly, a bit paunched. Paunched? Really? The most beautiful virgin in the whole wide kingdom was paunched? I don't think so. Again, hilarious. And I'm still trying to get a handle on why Mordecai had a California-grade tan while almost everyone else was a nice, soft shade of pasty.

Okay, the acting. Stiff. Sometimes vacuous. Often sappy. Invariably affected. Watch this movie just for the exercise in squirming. Simply put, not believable. No, not ever.

Finally, (and, honestly, most importantly), this effort at a story drifted ridiculously far from the biblical one. They announce at the start of the film that the story is missing biblical elements and that it contains non-biblical ones, all in the name of dramatic effect. Really? Read the Book of Esther. It'll only take ten minutes. But despite its brevity it's one of the most inherently dramatic narratives in all of scripture. The idea that someone decided to change it for dramatic effect is absurd. It's also disingenuous. Following the story as it is written would have cost more. Tweaking, condensing and changing the order of events allows for a more concise script and a more abbreviated screenplay. Shame though. Too bad the producers weren't more well connected.

Someday someone will do this story up right. It'll be spectacular.

I gave this one star, because you can't give less than one star. Attempted to watch this on one of the streaming services. Making it less than half the way through, had to watch something else. The writing, continuity; everything about this "movie" makes watching paint dry more appealing and worthwhile of my time.

Because of this, I asked myself who would dare to put out something this bad for a very small fringe of viewers? Doing some research, found out the same company who released "God is not Dead" is the culprit. Refusing to see this pile of garbage as well because of the same "fine" concern for detail, I fail understood how the audience for "God" and "Esther" is would find any of their movies "entertainment".

My advice for anyone who wasted your time on this or any film from this company, the producers of these movies should give you an apology and refund.