Fever Pitch (2005 film)

Fever Pitch
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Peter Farrelly Robert 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 (2005-04-08)
Running time	103 minutes
Language	English
Budget	$30,000,000
Box office	$50,451,307

Fever Pitch (released as The Perfect Catch outside of the United States and Canada) is a 2005 Farrelly brothers romantic comedy film starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon. 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 U.S. 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.

Plot

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. When he first asks her out, she rejects him, but she later changes her mind and agrees to go out with him.

On their first date, Lindsey is very sick, being suddenly stricken with food poisoning from a new restaurant where she had dinner the night before. Lindsey attempts to explain but she runs to her bathroom toilet in order to vomit, unable to finish. Ben decides to stay over and take care of Lindsey to make her feel better. He helps her change, he brings her a bottle of Gatorade, and even offers to clean her bathroom and brush her dog's teeth (Lindsey told the dog not to eat the vomit, but the dog did). The next morning, Lindsey has been restored to health and thanks Ben.

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, where Stephen King (a longtime Sox fan) throws the first pitch. 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, though they later learn she is not. 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.

Cast

• Drew Barrymore as Lindsey Meeks
• Jimmy Fallon as Ben Wrightman
• Jason Spevack as Ben in 1980
• Jack Kehler as Al
• Scott Severance as Artie
• Jessamy Finet as Theresa
• Maureen Keiller as Viv
• Lenny Clarke as Uncle Carl
• Ione Skye as Molly
• Siobhan Fallon Hogan as Lana
• KaDee Strickland as Robin
• Marissa Jaret Winokur as Sarah
• Evan Helmuth as Troy
• Brandon Craggs as Casey
• Brett Murphy as Ryan
• Isabella Fink as Audrey
• Miranda Black as Carrie
• Greta Onieogou as Tammy
• Johnny Sneed as Chris
• James Sikking as Doug Meeks
• Michael Rubenfeld as Ian
• Willie Garson as Kevin
• Armando Riesco as Gerard
• Zen Gesner as Steve
• JoBeth Williams as Maureen Meeks
• Mark Andrada as Ezra
• Charlotte Sullivan as Spin Instructor
• Scott Desano as Binocular Guy
• Lizz Alexander as Charlene
• Shary Guthrie as Christie
• Don Gavin as Cop
• Andrew Wilson as Grant Wade / Patrick Lyons
• Martin Roach as Husband
• Gina Clayton as Lady at Other Table
• Wayne Flemming as Leon
• Jackie Burroughs as Mrs. Warren
• Stephen King as Himself

Production

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.

Reception

Critical response

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. 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.

From a cinematographic and literary perspective, the film received some favorable criticism from experts Roger Ebert and James Berardinelli.

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.

Soundtrack

Fever Pitch: Music from the Motion Picture
Soundtrack album by Various Artists
Released	April 26, 2005 (2005-04-26)
Length	54:23
Label	BulletProof Music/Rykodisc

1. The Standells - "Dirty Water"
2. Dropkick Murphys - "Tessie"
3. Tears for Fears - "Who Killed Tangerine?"
4. Popium - "Sooner or Later"
5. Ivy - "Thinking About You"
6. Nick Drake - "Northern Sky"
7. Marah - "My Heart Is the Bums on the Street"
8. Steve Wynn - "Second Best"
9. The J. Geils Band - "Whammer Jammer" (Live Version)
10. The Human League - "(Keep Feeling) Fascination"
11. Chic - "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)"
12. Joe Pernice - "Moonshot Manny"
13. Jonathan Richman - "As We Walk to Fenway Park in Boston Town"
14. Mad Larry - "Window Pane"
15. Hurricane Smith - "Oh, Babe, What Would You Say?"

External links

• Fever Pitch at AllRovi
• Fever Pitch at Box Office Mojo
• Fever Pitch at the Internet Movie Database
• Fever Pitch at Metacritic
• Fever Pitch at Rotten Tomatoes
• Fever Pitch at the Baseball Movie Guide