What's to like in The Atheist is Campbell Scott. Scott is not only lovely to look at, he is delightful to know. He is an actor with precision – a welcome change from so many actors who flop about the stage as if they were jittery high-schoolers.
Scott is measured and thoughtful in his work, and he is a storyteller who knows that the best stories are told by people who enjoy them. Here Scott enjoys the hell out of the story of Augustine Early, a man whose ethics crumble as his life slips away down the river. He is a man looking for a job on a newspaper. It is his supreme quest, and the way he makes it sound, you would think he was fishing for a Pulitzer. But no.
Early is a small fish in a small pond. But his delusions of grandeur outpace his success as a journalist. He is given a desk in Obituaries to start off, and instead of working himself up from there, he screws himself into a pitch-black hole of petulance and resentment.
Just as all is about to cave in, a Senator, whom Early is blackmailing, reprieves him by calling in a favor. Seems the Senator has been taping Early’s current girlfriend, who is living in the guesthouse on his property. Blah blah blah. Things get out of hand, politician drops dead, girlfriend drops Early, and this leaves him with the Senator’s wife, which turns out to be a whale of an experience, but by about this time we've started checking our watches.
It’s a convoluted tale, and it is only by the grace of Scott’s performance that we follow it at all. What really knocks the caboose off the track are the logistics. For example, when Early is leaving us a suicide note in video form, he sets up a camera to our left, and then proceeds to ignore it 90% of the time. Add to this a camera, which we never see, at the back of the house throwing occasional projections onto the back of the set, and we have stepped pretty much off the chart.
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