The Perfect Catch (2005)
Director
Starring
Last On
11:00-13:10
Mon 26th Jul 2021 125m
Film4
Synopsis
Like High Fidelity before it, Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch has been given a Hollywood makeover - this time courtesy of those champions of gross-out comedy, Bobby and Peter Farrelly. Hornby's autobiographical chronicle of an obsessive Arsenal fan is relocated to America, with baseball taking the place of football, as the story's protagonist obsesses over the fortunes of the Boston Red Sox. Jimmy Fallon is the maths teacher with the anorak and an apartment stuffed with memorabilia, while Drew Barrymore is the high-flying executive with whom he strikes up an unlikely romance. It's a variation on the old formula of love being threatened by a third party, though in this case the third party wears a pitcher's mitt. The Sox, like the film's hero, are perennial losers and had not won the World Series for more than 80 years. But, when the team came from behind to triumph in the 2004 season, it provided the film-makers with the sort of happy ending that would probably invite derision if the writers had made it up. The Farrellys rein in their usual excesses, but still manage to produce the laughs, albeit accompanied by a dose of terminal cuteness.