My wife and I had been wanting to see this movie based on a novel based on a biblical story of the rise of Esther, Queen of Persia. I had heard good things about the book, and subsequently the movie. I’d even put the book (Haddasah by Tommy Tenney) on my “possibilities” list. After all, I like a good story taken from the Scripture and fictionalized to bring it to life for the modern reader. And the story of Esther is a GOOD story.

The movie itself could be great. There are no instances that I recall of vocabulary limited to vulgarity and swearing. There are no gratuitous sex scenes. And there is no unnecessary violence. (Even though the background story would allow all of these objectional materials.) All in all it is just the type of movie that family-oriented viewers has been calling for over a vast number of years. So what happens?

The plot is disjointed, the acting mediocre at best, and the retelling of the story of Esther removes all the best parts of the biblical story. Perhaps Tenney forgot to read the biblical account before penning his novel, perhaps the screen writers were just unfamiliar with the story of Esther and Mordecai and Xerxes and Haman, but the leaps which remove the power of faith and courage are missing in the movie. The villain Haman is characterized as one of the stronger characters in the story, and the ultimate irony so prevalent in the scripture is all but absent in this rendering of the story.

Bottom line, if you liked the story of Esther, this is a good movie to skip.