Fever Pitch
This spring’s ultimate homerun-with-bases-loaded-movie. Ben (Jimmy Fallon) is seven years old when his Uncle Carl (Lenny Clarke) takes him to his 1st ballgame at Fenway Park. And so his serious love affair with the underdog Red Sox is born. Fast forward 23 years later, and Ben, a geometry teacher, inherits season tickets behind the dugout, from his now deceased uncle, around the same time he meets Lindsay (Drew Barrymore). She’s cool, sophisticated, and professional so her friends worry that she’s dating well, a lame school teacher. And besides, certainly if he’s single, there’s something wrong with him. What she doesn’t know yet, is that she’s fallen for ‘winter guy’ because ‘summer guy’ is a Sox fanatic who even uses Yankee toilet paper and spends every waking moment at the ballpark. Seems he’s only perfect in the ‘off season’. After “Stuck On You’, it’s good to see the Farrelly’s back on track and prove that they can do more heart-felt romance (a step up from their usual successful “Dumb and Dumber” or “Something About Mary” farting and burping genre). The Farrelly brothers truly capture a passion previously reserved for only Boston Grandpas who never saw the Sox win the World Series. Even a Yankee’s fan would finally understand after seeing Fallon’s disarming and charming passion for his team. And there lies the movie’s irony. Just as Fallon must choose between the playoffs and Barrymore, (in real life while filming this movie) the Sox go to the Series and win for the first time in 86 years. What are the chances they’d have to alter the script’s ending? A kind of feel good movie New Englanders and everybody else will treasure.
