Fever Pitch (British)

Not the lousy 2005 American version. I wouldn't do that to you!

May be found at the following website: ebay, Fair use.

Fever Pitch (1997). Grade: B+

Nick Hornby is probably best-known (to American audiences) as the author of two books turned into successful movies, High Fidelity and About A Boy.

Fever Pitch was Hornby’s first book, published in 1992. It’s about the ups and many, many downs of being passionately invested in the fate of one sports team. When Hornby wrote it, his favorite team (Arsenal, the famed soccer squad from North London) was stuck in a long funk, and just on the verge of becoming a top team again. (And before they were bought by an American billionaire who became a billionaire by marrying a Wal-Mart heiress.)

Hornby nails what it’s like to take a team’s successes and failures personally, as a reflection on yourself. When the team wins, it bodes well for your immediate hopes in life, and vice versa — if you fail at something, or suffer immense disappointment about something, it means the team will probably choke at a crucial moment, too.¹

And Hornby realizes this is completely irrational. He knows it comes from childhood experiences, where going to Arsenal games gave him a sense of closeness to his family that he didn't always feel. And how feeling like a part of the frequently-disappointed fanbase is real, but not as real as loved ones and friends can be.

If you’ve seen the 2005 American Fever Pitch, you’ll know that its story is much more simplistic. It’s about how the main Red Sox fan character needs to realize his fandom is immature, that it’s blocking his path to checking off the Next Achievement Of Impressive Adulthood. (In a similar 2005 movie, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the main character has to make a breakthrough by selling his collectable toys.)

A friend of mine wrote me that this isn’t what Hornby was getting at. He said, “‘the reason to grow up isn’t to “get with it,” or anything like that. It’s because if you don’t grow up and take on responsibilities, then others can’t rely on you, and thus you miss out on an important aspect of the human experience, which is to be needed and valued by others.”’

That’s closer to the 1997 Fever Pitch film, and not surprisingly so, since Hornby wrote the screenplay himself. (It was his first; he’d later do quality screenplays based on other people’s writing, like 2015’s Brooklyn.)

Another thing the 1997 Fever Pitch has? Colin Firth. Would you rather watch Jimmy Fallon or Colin Firth? I thought so.

Firth and the lovely, funny Ruth Gemmell play middle-school teachers, and very good ones. The ones that know how to talk to kids. In one scene, Firth is coaching school soccer, and a player makes a crucial mistake. Firth asks him, would you rather have that mistake back or have Arsenal win the big game tomorrow? Naturally, the kid would prefer Arsenal win, and immediately feels less awful about the mistake.

Firth gives a great performance. Everyone does, but his character is the focus. When Gemmell’s character, who doesn’t know soccer at all, manages to learn quite a bit quite quickly (they’re both highly literate, intelligent people), Firth is slightly ticked at how well she understands the game and its nuances. He learned those things from years of misery, and she just got them with a quick crash course! She hasn’t suffered for Arsenal!

That’s petty. Yet you can see his weird logic; if she thinks all there is to fandom is knowing a lot about the game, and not enduring multiple heartbreaks, what else about him will she never understand? Obviously, part of him wants to push her away for fear of getting hurt. At least when Arsenal breaks his heart, it isn’t personal. (Except, in his mind, it sort of is!)

One scene that’ll ring true for any sports superfan (or anybody who’s ever been close to one) is Firth watching Arsenal on TV in a key game with his best friend (Mark Strong). Firth can’t enjoy any good moment, moaning how it’ll make the inevitable collapse even more devastating. Every Arsenal player is a bum destined to screw up in the clutch, and all the refs are unfair. The friend is used to this, and puts up with it because he’s a friend. But it is clearly annoying. (Firth even almost seems to know how annoying it is, yet can’t help himself, since “we Arsenal fans are so suffering” has been part of his identity for so long.)

It’s the same vibe with Firth and Gemmell’s relationship; the disagreements feel real, not things put there to add phony tension. They clearly do care for each other a lot, they clearly do want to make it work. They look for a first place to move into together, and Firth finds a reasonably affordable one. Right next to Arsenal’s stadium! On the same block! You can understand why he finds it a steal, and why she finds it ridiculous.

Their arguments sting. Because Firth's and Gammell's characters are so clued in to how each other think, they know how to hurt with a few choice words. If you've never been there, I commend your perfect relationship history, you are a model for all humanity forever.

Ultimately, this Fever Pitch is so, so much better than the 2005 movie because of those arguments. They make the relationship feel real, and not something destined to turn out perfectly at the end. In the 2005 film, you assume the couple ends up together; in this one, you hope they do.

Final rant; how are companies so bad at marketing movies? I’d never heard of this film until I read a Guardian interview with Hornby about the making of High Fidelity.

Vidmark / Trimark put out an American VHS copy of Fever Pitch in 2000. But they didn’t use the perfectly good original poster seen above, perhaps fearing that Americans wouldn’t understand what “worship eleven men” meant. So they concocted this embarrassment instead:

From the eBay. You can buy it for $3.99, today!

Any teenage boy who rented this movie based on that cover was, likely, quite disappointed.

1. I remember riding the bus in Minneapolis in 2001, a day before the Minnesota Vikings were in a huge playoff game. Two teenagers behind me were talking about the game. Suddenly, one anguished, “I left my Randy Moss jersey in my locker at school!” “Oh, NO,” the other moaned. “Now they’re gonna lose.” They did, 41-0. So the kids were right! Right?