Ideally timed for Father’s Day, David Duchovny’s “Reverse the Curse” is, naturally enough, a heartfelt father-son drama with the actor-director-screenwriter front and center as terminally ill Marty.
A self-professed terrible father to his only son Ted (Logan Marshall-Green) and a terrible husband to his late wife, Marty and Ted are reunited through Mariana (Stephanie Beatriz), his hospital’s grief counselor.
Set in the summer of 1978, “Reverse the Curse” refers to Marty’s obsession with the Boston Red Sox’s decades’ long failure to win a pennant and how historically homerun hitter Bucky Dent ruined the team’s chances yet again.
The film is adapted from Duchovny’s critically praised 2016 novel “Bucky (Expletive) Dent” which was the film’s original title. He is directing, only the second time in a lengthy career, and as producer made his independent film despite budget and time constraints.
Does that mean Duchovny, 63, is obsessed?
“I wouldn’t say it’s an obsession. My obsession is to make a great movie,” he said over Zoom from Greece where he’s acting in a new movie. “My obsession is to move people. My obsession is to make art that also makes money.
“That’s kind of my obsession: I’m looking for that sweet spot. That’s why I need people like you to get out there and say, ‘Hey, you may think this is a small movie, but it’s actually a big movie.’
“It’s about big things. Like it’s about life. And maybe we can get back to a culture where we can make movies like this that mean something to each other.”
Duchovny’s Marty has spent his life apart from the people he should love most – until a heartbreaking climax that critics have hailed as the best acting of Duchovny’s career.
“I think,” he said, “what we get over the course of the movie from Marty is an understanding of his pain and an understanding of his reaction to that pain.
“What is engendered by that understanding is empathy — and that’s what the movie-going experience is all about. That’s what life is all about. It’s really one heart reaching out to another when you start to understand another person’s limitations and their pain.
“That’s what the movie is about. Not so much, ‘Is he likable?’ but, ‘I understand his hurt now. And I can forgive a lot more.’”
Beatriz’s Mariana, she said, understands the dynamics surrounding a terminal illness. “Marty she sees is really alone and wants so badly to be seen for who he really is. That means reconnecting with his son. That’s why she becomes a bridge between the two men at the center of the story. So they can have that connection before Marty dies.”
“Reverse the Curse” opens June 14