David Duchovny’s ‘Reverse the Curse’ and Julia von Heinz’s ‘Treasure’ explore complex father-child dynamics.
By Dana Barbuto/Boston Movie News

Just in time for Father’s Day comes a pair of films about dads seeking to mend broken relationships with their adult children. In the standout of the two, writer-director David Duchovny dives into the nostalgic summer of 1978, where the Red Sox dominate the AL East, and a father-son road trip to Fenway Park becomes a journey of reconciliation. Meanwhile, in “Treasure,” Julia von Heinz embarks on an emotional “daughter-father” trek through Poland, weaving through the painful threads of historical trauma and the quest for closure.

‘Reverse the Curse’ bats around reconciliation

Duchovny plays a cantankerous cancer patient, giving new meaning to the term diehard Red Sox fan. But he has more on his mind than just baseball. Duchovny takes a big swing through topics of forgiveness, reconciliation, and the inevitability of death. It’s not all doom and gloom, though. Adapting his 2016 novel “Bucky F*cking Dent,” Duchovny also plays for laughs. There’s welcome levity in a funny locker-room exchange involving the Fullilove family jewels and a trio of barbershop pals launching mild insults and a foul-mouthed paperboy who turns swearing into art a la Armando Iannucci (“Veep”).

The movie opens in 1956, with black-and-white TV footage detailing the Red Sox’s infamous trade of Babe Ruth to the Yankees, a deal that cursed Boston’s baseball fortunes. This historical context sets the stage for a story focusing on Ted (Logan Marshall-Green), a failed writer who peddles peanuts at Yankee Stadium, and his estranged, dying father, Marty (Duchovny himself), an obsessive Boston fan. Is there any other kind? Marty, diagnosed with terminal cancer, believes this is the year the Sox can finally break the Curse of the Bambino and win the World Series for the first time since 1918. If Boston stays the course, Marty dies a happy man. Ted, named after Hall of Famer Ted Williams, initially reluctant and resentful, moves back home to New Jersey, where he grapples with his father’s declining health and their fraught relationship. As the summer progresses, Boston remains atop the division, with the dreaded Yanks threatening. Because his father’s “mental and physical health depend on whether the Sox win or lose,” Ted devises a scheme to keep Marty’s spirits up by manufacturing a winning streak, intercepting newspapers to ensure Marty only hears good news about his beloved team.

As Boston’s ill-fated season inches toward that nail-biting one-game playoff against the Pinstripes at Fenway, Marty and Ted bicker and bond, humorously navigating their shared history in the looming shadow of death. Dad was a lousy husband and father, joking about his unsuccessful open-heart surgery: “My heart remained closed.” Ted was a sickly mama’s boy. “The reefer” helps the conversation flow. Ted’s arc is as much about self-discovery as it is about reconnecting with his father—and hooking up with Mariana (Stephanie Beatriz), aka the “Death Specialist,” an end-of-life nurse. Despite some plot contrivances and predictability, the narrative is moving and funny, a credit to Duchovny’s deft balance of humor and pathos. Marty might not see the Sox make a late-October run, but he still goes out a winner. (Co-starring Jason Beghe, Evan Handler, Pamela Adlon, Daphne Rubin-Vega. 105 minutes. In theaters and available to rent via video on demand Friday. Grade: B+)

‘Treasure’ is a thing of the past

British actor Stephen Fry plays Polish Holocaust survivor Edek in “Treasure,” writer-director Julia von Heinz’s emotionally inert drama about a family confronting their tragic past. It’s the early ’90s, and Edek arrives in Warsaw to meet with his daughter Ruth (Lena Dunham). Upon landing, he’s caught saying, “What Jew goes to Poland as a tourist?” He doesn’t want to be there. His wounds have long scarred. However, she wants (needs?) to see the old home he grew up in Łódź, seized from his parents during the war, and to visit the other places he lived and worked. At age 36, she’s newly divorced and dumping three decades of pent-up emotional baggage all over Poland. With each stop on their itinerary, including Auschwitz, she’s daring her widowed father to bare his soul. In return, she offers a scowl and pout whenever he throws back a shot of vodka or dances with a woman. Yet somehow, it takes her almost the whole movie to figure out why Edek dislikes riding on trains.

“Treasure” is based on Lily Brett’s semi-autobiographical novel “Too Many Men” and von Heinz and co-writer John Quester conjure one of those wayward “inspired by true events” movies that aim to be a testament to the enduring power of familial bonds and the redemptive potential of love and forgiveness. But in reality, it’s a head-scratching waste of talent in Dunham and Fry, who find themselves trapped in an odd-couple buddy comedy inside a road trip flick inside a Holocaust drama. Von Heinz struggles with the tonal shifts. None of the parts jell into a cohesive whole, though Fry is pretty funny when he astutely explains Ruth’s intimacy issues after asking her when was the last time she had “the sex.” He got the flashier part and made the most of it. (Rated R for some language; 112 minutes. Playing Friday at Boston Common, Causeway, Methuen, Liberty Tree Mall, Framingham, and Tyngsboro. Grade: C