| Fever Pitch | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Peter Farrelly Bobby Farrelly |
| Produced by | Amanda Posey Alan Greenspan Gil Netter Drew Barrymore Nancy Juvonen Bradley Thomas |
| Screenplay by | Lowell Ganz Babaloo Mandel |
| Story by | Nick Hornby (novel) |
| Starring | Drew Barrymore Jimmy Fallon JoBeth Williams KaDee Strickland |
| Music by | Craig Armstrong |
| Cinematography | Matthew F. Leonetti |
| Editing by | Alan Baumgarten |
| Studio | Flower Films Conundrum Entertainment |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | April 8, 2005 |
| Running time | 103 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $30 million |
| Box office | $50,451,307 (worldwide) |
Fever Pitch, which was released as The Perfect Catch outside of the United States and Canada, is a 2005 Farrelly brothers romantic comedy film. It is a remake of a 1997 British film of the same name. Both films are loosely based on the Nick Hornby book of the same name, a best-selling memoir in the United Kingdom. Hornby also wrote the screenplay for the original film, but had no input for the American remake. While both the book and the original 1997 film are about soccer, this version, aimed at the US market, is about baseball. Both Fever Pitch films feature dramatic or unexpected sporting victories, the original focusing on Arsenal's last minute League title win in 1989, and the remake on Boston Red Sox's 2004 World Series. The film opened in theatres on April 8, 2005 and is the first non-gross out film by the Farrelly brothers.
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The film begins with Ben Wrightman as a 7 year-old going to a Red Sox game with his Uncle Carl. His uncle treated him like a son because he had no kids of his own. The opening narrative explains that ever since that day, Ben became a die-hard Red Sox fan. Just about everything he owns bears the Red Sox name, emblem or the image of a Red Sox player (with the exception of his toilet paper, which bears the New York Yankees insignia). Ben inherited his uncle's season tickets when he died. The story picks up 23 years later with Ben (Jimmy Fallon) as a school teacher who is still rather immature for his age. He meets Lindsey Meeks (Drew Barrymore), a professionally successful workaholic executive. Overcoming her initial hesitance, she becomes attracted to him because of his ability to show a passionate commitment to something. That spring, he later pretends he is proposing to her, but instead asks her to the Red Sox home opener. Lindsey attends, but not being a baseball or Red Sox fan, she knows nothing about the Curse of the Bambino or even how to pronounce the name Yastrzemski. The two continue to attend the games together until one summer night when Lindsey attempts to catch up on work by taking her laptop to the game. Not paying attention to the game, she is knocked out by a line drive foul ball by then Baltimore Orioles shortstop Miguel Tejada off Mike Myers. She eventually recovers, but stops going to the games.
Things take a turn for the worse when Lindsey invites Ben to go with her to Paris and he rejects the offer because the Red Sox are in the heat of the playoff race. Before leaving for Paris, she tells Ben she is "late" and may be pregnant with his child. Lindsey starts to become fed up with Ben's obsession with the Red Sox. Ben agrees to miss a game against the Yankees in order to go with Lindsey to her friend's birthday party. Ben and Lindsey have a wonderful time together, and after making love, he tells her it was one of the best nights of his life. Moments later, Ben receives a call from his ecstatic friend Troy who informs him that the Red Sox overcame a seven run deficit in the bottom of the ninth inning to pull off one of the greatest comebacks in team history. Ben becomes irate that he missed such a historic Red Sox moment, greatly hurting Lindsey's feelings. After Lindsey miserably declares he has broken her heart, he and Lindsey separate for a while.
Ben soon misses Lindsey, and visits her in a futile attempt to reconcile. He eventually feels her loss so deeply that he plans to sell his season tickets in order to prove that she means more to him than the Red Sox do. Lindsey finds out about his plan during the celebration for her much-anticipated promotion. Immediately leaving the celebration, she rushes to the ballpark to try to stop him. She gets in during the 8th inning of the Red Sox — Yankees playoff game when the Sox are just 3 outs away from being swept. Ben is actually in the process of signing a contract with the prospective ticket-buyer as they sit in the stands. Because she is unable to reach Ben from her section in Fenway Park in time to stop him from signing the contract, she illegally runs across the field, deftly avoiding security personnel as she eventually reaches him. She explains that if he loves her enough to sell his seats, then she loves him enough not to allow him to do so. The two reunite and kiss in front of the entire crowd.
The film ends with a narrative explaining how the Red Sox won that game, then beat the Yankees three more times for the pennant, later sweeping the National League champion St. Louis Cardinals in four games for their first World Series title in 86 years. Ben and Lindsay get married. She gets pregnant but the film ends with a narrative explaining that the baby will be named after one of the players, Ted (for Ted Williams) if it's a boy and Carla (for Carl Yastrzemski) if it's a girl, with the narrator hoping for a boy.
The original plot had assumed the Red Sox would lose in the playoffs, however when they won eight straight games to win the 2004 American League Championship Series and subsequent World Series, the ending had to be rewritten and additional scenes were shot in St. Louis, Missouri.[1]
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 64% of 171 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews and that it got a rating average of 6.2 out of 10.[2] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 56 based on 37 reviews.[3]
From a cinematographic and literary perspective, the film received some favorable criticism from experts Roger Ebert[4] and James Berardinelli.[5]
The film opened at #3 and grossed $12.4 million in its opening weekend. The final North American gross of the film was $42,071,069, and the worldwide gross was $50,451,307.[6]
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