Shadows on the Wall | Reverse the Curse

Reverse the Curse

dir-scr David Duchovny
prd Jordan Yale Levine, Jordan Beckerman, David Duchovny
with Logan Marshall-Green, David Duchovny, Stephanie Beatriz, Jason Beghe, Evan Handler, Santo Fazio, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Pamela Adlon, Gavin Donaghy, Kathiamarice Lopez, Benny Mora, Liam Garten
release UK Mar.24 gff,
US 14.Jun.24
23/US 1h48

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Both scrappy and intelligent, this father-son comedy is written and directed by David Duchovny, who also stars as a cantankerous man with terminal lung cancer. While the surfaces are bristly and blackly hilarious, and the characters aren't always likeable, this is a movie with a huge heart. So it grabs hold in unexpected ways. The plot may get melodramatic along the way, but it's also involving and very moving.

In 1978 New York, still-aspiring writer Ted (Marshall-Green) hasn't lived an interesting enough life to inspire something to write about. Then he hears that his estranged father Marty (Duchonvy) is dying, and that Marty thinks his death will end the decades-long curse on the perennially losing Boston Red Sox. So Ted sets out to give his dad a reason to live, faking a baseball winning streak with the help of Marty's friends (Beghe, Handler and Fazio). Marty's nurse Mariana (Beatriz) agrees to go along with this. And irony plays a role in what happens next.

Even though Ted isn't exactly a clean freak, he is horrified by the squalor in Marty's apartment. And Marty acknowledges that he was a lousy father. Their relationship is fascinating, both acerbic and affectionate, sidestepping sentimentality. Things get even messier when the other woman Marty's lost love Eva (Rubin-Vega) turns up, perhaps with the possibility of offering Ted another reason to live. And then there's the interaction between Ted and Mariana, which evolves with spiky realism as well.

With his mutton-chop sideburns and luxuriant locks, Marshall-Green looks exactly like a guy who has given up on his dream of ever publishing a novel. And he also shows that Ted is smart, genuinely looking for connections and trying to do the right thing by his father. His spiky interaction with Beatriz is engaging, largely because she never plays it in the expected way. And Duchovny has a great time as the curmudgeon who begins to understand the chaos he has created.

Characters in this story are continually apologising for their bad behaviour, and the point is that even though they won't express it, these people love and forgive each other. This leads into a final-act road trip during which Ted and Marty find a new rhythm in their relationship, making each other laugh and speaking some hard truths. So while the film feels a bit uneven, it's full of life.

themes, language 6.Jun.24

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