Fever Pitch (2005) * * *

 

Directed by:  Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly

Starring:  Jimmy Fallon, Drew Barrymore, Willie Garson, Lenny Clarke

When Fever Pitch was made, the Boston Red Sox were in the final year of the alleged "Curse of the Bambino."  You remember that, don't you?  Babe Ruth was traded from the Red Sox to the Yankees in 1918, causing an 86-year World Series drought for the Sox and twenty-six titles for the Yanks.   The Red Sox have won four World Series championships since 2004, so that curse is most assuredly lifted.

Ben Wrightman (Fallon) is a lifelong, obsessed Sox fan with a closet full of jerseys and Red Sox bed sheets and memorabilia all over his apartment.   He meets Lindsey (Barrymore) over the winter and they date and fall in love.   She contracts food poisoning on the first date and vomits.   Ben attentively takes care of her.   He says and does all the right things, but that is before spring training.  Once spring training arrives, Ben turns into That Guy who paints his face and acts like a lunatic fan on television.  Oh, I mean passionate.

Fever Pitch details the ups and downs of Ben and Lindsey's relationship over the course of a Red Sox season.   This turns out to be the season in which the Red Sox finally won it all, but Ben and Lindsey don't know that at the time.   Lindsey is working ninety hours a week to earn a promotion at work, while juggling Ben's needs to attend virtually every Fenway game.   Something's gotta give.  At one point or two, it's Ben's relationship with Lindsey.   She wants a real relationship, he wants to torture himself by watching his beloved Red Sox with his Fenway family of season ticket holders who have agonized over the team's near misses as much as Ben has.   He has more in common with them, but he would love to lure Lindsey into the fold.

Fallon and Barrymore have an easy, likable chemistry.   Lindsey is more pliable than Ben, who tries to avoid listening to the Red Sox score while having dinner with her parents for the first time.   He even thinks he succeed in being the guy who attends a costume party instead of a Red Sox-Yankees game.  When he finds out the result, he laments having attended.   Any psyched sports fan likely has at least one game they wish they saw but didn't due to prior commitments.  

Directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly, whose movies until this point veered towards slapstick, Fever Pitch is a subtly handled, lightweight romantic comedy which flows a bit more easily than a Red Sox season, at least up until that point.