The Scientist

Marcus can’taccept the death of his beautiful wife and daughter in a fatal accident.Although two years have passed, he still hasn’t returned to teaching at theuniversity. The physicist doesn’t shave regularly, get enough sleep or leavethe house often enough to lose his ghostly pallor. But he’s still a brilliantmind, a theoretician of string theory and the multiverse. Perhaps a machineharnessing the quantum mechanics of the universe will confirm his belief thatconsciousness survives physical death and put him in touch with his loved ones?

At least that’sone interpretation of The Scientist.Directed and co-written by Zach LeBeau, the indie film begins as awell-composed character study of a lost soul at the edge of experimentalphysics before losing its way into molecular confusion.

Sunk in deepdepression, Marcus (Bill Sage) rails angrily against a society he findsshortsighted and uninspired. His only friend, an affable fellow professorcalled Alan (Adam LeFevre), is hard put to keep him from fading to black.Marcus, however, is working on something mysterious and important, a whirlingchrome machine that sends off sparks and white light in one of severalwell-executed displays of low-budget special effects. Is Marcus trying tocontact the dead? Or is the machine allowing him to hear the thoughts of hissulky neighbor, Jessica (Brittany Benjamin), and her arguments with herpint-size Gordon Gekko husband?

Capably acted andoften well shot, The Scientist beginsto suffer past the halfway mark as the pace slackens, the plotline blurs andthe arty tics multiply. What goes on after that point is hard to pin down, butperhaps that’s not surprising in a science story whose theory rests on theuncertainty principle.

The Scientist opens April 30 at the Rosebud CinemaDrafthouse.