In 2026’s Beauty and the Atheist, Beau Davidson plays Trey Crawford. Trey is one of the country’s most popular atheist podcasters. He spends his entire show making fun of creationists and the makers of Christian movies. When he discovers that Douglas Connors (Donald James Parker), the star of Gramps Goes to College, is living nearby, Trey decides to invite him on the podcast for a debate.
Now, already, this is just a smidgen more interesting than the usual Douglas James Parker film. Parker is essentially playing himself but he’s calling himself Douglas Connors. This film seems to acknowledge that Gramps Goes To College has a certain Room-like reputation. Could this be a Donald James Parker film that actually has a sense of humor about itself?
Douglas reluctantly goes on Trey’s podcast, expecting to get ambushed by a slick podcaster who hides his own bitterness and personal failings behind a bunch of scientific terms. And that’s exactly what happens. Douglas is earnest and polite. Trey is snarky and angry. Even Douglas admits that he lost the debate.
Meanwhile, Trey has fallen for Jeweli (Tara Massey), a woman who he keeps spotting in his local coffeehouse. (It wouldn’t be a Donald James Parker film without a coffeehouse.) What Trey doesn’t know is that Jeweli is the daughter of Douglas Connors! And she’s a believer. Soon, the Atheist has fallen for the beautiful Christian which …. actually, I knew quite a few couples where one partner is religious and the other is not. It’s not really that unusual of a thing.
Beauty and the Atheist is a smidgen better than the usual Donald James Parker film, largely because Beau Davidson and Tara Massey are better performers than usually appear in Parker’s films. As well, the scenes set in Davidson’s podcast studio actually require Parker to make some lighting and design choices as opposed to just turning on the camera. Interestingly enough, despite the film’s premise, Beauty and the Atheist is not quite as aggressive as some of Parker’s other films. There’s one rather lengthy scenes in which Douglas explains all of the tricks that Trey supposedly used to make him lose the debate but otherwise, this film is far less angry than something like Operation Unite or, for that matter, Gramps Goes To College.
That said, it’s still a Donald James Parker film. This is yet another film where the atheist is an atheist because of family trauma. Now, to be honest, I’ve met any number of atheists where that stereotype is indeed true. But it still feels a bit too easy of a narrative excuse. On a technical level, the sound recording is often abysmal. While Davidson and Massey are adequate in their roles, the rest of the cast delivers their lines flatly. As for the dialogue, it’s sometimes a blessing that it’s hard to hear what the characters are saying. Most of it falls flat and the attempts at humor are painful to watch. When Jeweli’s sister comes across some evidence online that she thinks will put Trey in his place, she literally shouts, “Eureka!” It’s hard to listen to and hard to watch.
