House of David review: ‘hokey biblical adaptation rings hollow’ - The Jewish Chronicle

Is revitalising a biblical epic for the big screen a risky business? Is it too easy for larger-than-life Old Testament characters to beget unrealistic portrayals and engage in preachy dialogue? Well, this is what has happened with House of David.

The new Amazon Prime Video series tells the titular king’s origin story, from lowly shepherd to anointed leader, unfolding against the backdrop of tribal tensions and external threats to the Kingdom of Israel.

The presiding King Saul, played by Ali Suliman, descends into madness after the prophet Samuel (Stephen Lang) declares that he has fallen out of God’s favour and a new king must be anointed. As Saul drags his family and court into chaos, sewing divisions among the tribes of Israel, the threat of the warring Philistines looms ever larger, increasing the Hebrews’ demand of a leader who can unite them.

The eight-episode series begins, in a sense, where it ends: with a showdown between David, played by newcomer Michael Iskander, and the lumbering giant Goliath. But the story rewinds before we see that fabled battle’s conclusion, taking us back a year to when David was no more than an illegitimate shepherd, relegated to working the fields outside his father Jesse’s home and staying well away from the eyes of the village.

David is something of a poor man’s Jon Snow, if the biblical adaptation can be compared to Game of Thrones, which in broad strokes it can; the latter, and other such contemporary “hero’s journey” epics, certainly draw from the archetypal characters of the bible, not to mention the violence, power struggles and the dramatic tests of morality.

But the players in House of David rely too heavily on the hope that their biblical reputations precede them, diminishing the need for the crucial character-building that compels audiences to buy in. The dialogue is cheesy, and there are too many slow, enigmatic glances into the middle distance underscored by swelling music that attempts to advise viewers when to feel moved.

Stephen Lang as the prophet Samuel and Michael Iskander as David in House of David. (Photo: Nikos Nikolopoulos/Prime Video)[Missing Credit]

The series, made by the non-Jewish filmmaker Jon Erwin under his new studio The Wonder Project, is thankfully not preachy, but it feels a bit hokey in the way that religious programmes sometimes can. King Saul’s psycho-religious crisis, depicted through over-produced hallucinations of ghoulish, growling men, is more laughable than it is haunting.

The sagacious, white-bearded Samuel is probably the most interesting character in the show, portrayed with simultaneous spiritual fortitude and physical frailty by Stephen Lang. Even so, the world in which we find Samuel is entirely two-dimensional; it is hard to get a sense of the relationships between the Israeli tribes, or even of the social and moral codes of the era, probably for they are not explored in any of the eight episodes. And don’t get me started on the distractingly inconsistent accents – just because the cast is made up of Israelis, Americans, Brits and Egyptians should not mean they could not settle on a single credible inflection.

If executed well, biblical dramas can be riveting productions with the power to both entertain and inform, but our familiarity with the David and Goliath story isn’t enough to convince audiences, of any faith or none, to keep watching this wooden adaptation.

★

Topics:

Amazon Prime