‘Fever Pitch’

The lack of side-splitting laughs gives the audience the chance to notice all the other flaws in this sweet-but-misguided effort.

By: Jim Boyle
Fever Pitch.>
   Those watching the Boston Red Sox’s historic World Series win over the St. Louis Cardinals on television last October may have been asking themselves the same question when a camera caught a familiar-looking pair on the St. Louis field celebrating with the new baseball champs: What the heck are Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore doing there?
   Six months later, an answer has finally arrived with the release of Fever Pitch, a romantic comedy featuring Barrymore as a successful business woman who begins to fall for Fallon, a schoolteacher with an undying passion for his favorite team, the Boston Red Sox. While he says he loves her more, it’s pretty obvious who his heart really belongs to.
   Inspired by a book by Nick Hornby, who also wrote High Fidelity, the story was already made into a film in 1997 starring Colin Firth as a diehard soccer fan. In order to Americanize it, writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel had to pick a fan base just as insane as the British soccer hooligans. Boston, with its tortured history, was an easy and obvious choice. Coincidentally, a funny thing happened during filming. After almost a century without a championship, the Red Sox finally won, allowing reality to write an unexpected happy ending. Maybe they should do something similar for the Philadelphia Eagles.
   Almost as amazing is the fact that the Farrelly Brothers (Peter and Bobby) directed Fever Pitch, and there isn’t a beheaded parrot, human hair gel or conjoined twins anywhere in sight. The lack of gross-out humor is a nice change of pace. Unfortunately, it wasn’t replaced with much humor at all. There are some funny moments and sight gags, but nothing near the level of Dumb & Dumber and Kingpin. The lack of side-splitting laughs gives the audience the chance to realize all the other flaws in this sweet but misguided effort.
   While wannabe ingénues like Kate Hudson and Brittany Murphy battle for the void left by Meg Ryan, Drew Barrymore is actually holding the crown as the new queen of romantic comedies. She fits the bill nicely as Lindsey Meeks, a sharp business woman on the road to a highly successful career.
   Even though her professional life is going well, her personal life leaves much to be desired. At the urging of her best friends, she takes a chance on Ben Wrightman. (Right man. Get it?) At first, she is concerned that she makes more than the goofy teacher, but those fears dissipate as she becomes powerless to his sincere charm.
   Everything seems to be going great — that is, until spring training starts. As Ben puts it, he’s a Red Sox fan. Of course, that’s putting it mildly, especially once you get a look at his room, complete with Boston bed sheets, framed photos of various players and New York Yankee toilet paper, which got a big laugh. You can never go wrong with a Yankee joke.
   Barrymore wins the audience as she accepts this major part of Ben’s life. He has been at every home game for 23 years, since his uncle began taking him, eventually inheriting his season tickets. Instead of forcing him to change his ways, she works out a way to leave that part of his life unharmed. She works her schedule around home games and, if they’re out to dinner during away games, she makes sure he doesn’t accidentally hear the score before he watches his recording of the broadcast.
   She even attends a few, learning all about the rules and especially about the Red Sox, from the Curse of the Bambino to the 1986 World Series, when a ground ball rolled through first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs. She endures all of Ben’s strange behavior during the season, even risking an important promotion. Unfortunately, the devotion doesn’t travel both ways.
   There isn’t much to say about Jimmy Fallon, a guy who wants so badly to be Adam Sandler, he can even do a spot-on impression of him. Here, he conjures up two emotions, happy and sad, while generating zero chemistry with Barrymore. He spouts off some good one-liners, but loses the audience’s attention when he tries to wax poetic about his relationship with the Boston Red Sox. The native New Yorker walks like a Red Sox fan and talks like a Red Sox fan, but doesn’t really sell the life of a Boston Red Sox fan.
   With a better lead actor, one suspects a better film would have been made about the baseball aspect. The Farrelly Brothers include footage of Boston residents celebrating their team, making for a nice gift to the city. They poke fun at the fans, but are never mean. They understand and respect the dedication to a team that has let them down so many times.
   A couple of genuine laughs come from Willie Garson, an anesthesiologist who sees no problem with leaving a surgery to bid on some of Ben’s season tickets. And even though it’s in every commercial, Drew Barrymore getting beaned in the head by a foul ball still manages to be funny. The audience also manages to get hit over the head a few times with the film’s message about loving a person despite all of their flaws. Let’s be honest, the Red Sox’s ultimate victory in the World Series isn’t the only predictable ending.
Rated PG-13. Contains crude and sexual humor, and some sensuality.