Fever Pitch

I am a middle-aged American woman who has never seen a soccer game and has never seen any kind of live sports game all the way through beyond Little League (3 brothers, 1 son). I live in a town where football is the main local religion. Nick Hornby's novel was a delight to read and really gave me some sense of the psychology as well as the anthropology of being a fan. I rented the movie because I wanted to SEE the novel: the stadium, the terraces, the colors, the craziness Hornby describes. Youtube and Wikipedia could tell me some about Alan Smith, Highbury, the Hillsborough tragedy, but not enough. The movie came through. Actual footage of games and scenes inside the stadium gave a powerful sense of what it's all about. The final sequence, in which various characters Paul's fandom has touched watch a championship game, was wonderfully moving. The plot has three characters--Paul the young fan, Paul the adult fan, and Sarah the outsider who is repelled by the irrationality, the loud and sweary masculinity of it all. The plot exists to allow Paul to expose, stubbornly as a child and articulately as an adult, what it means to be a fan. Sarah is there to force him into talking and thinking a bit about it. Both Pauls are marvelous. Colin Firth is amazing. His physical attractiveness is essential to the plot--it gets him into Sarah's bed so they can start talking about Arsenal-- and that simple fact leaves him huge amounts of room to be boyish, goofy, moody, clueless, innocent, and cruel.

Fantastic. I had the pleasure of going to Highbury (Arsenal Stadium) twice to see the Gunners play in real Premiership clashes against Sheffield Wednesday and Wimbledon, and the soccer fanaticism portrayed in the film is NOT hyperbolized at all. As a Yank, i felt like a right outsider, but i was hooked instantly when i exited the Underground station and was swept away in the program selling, chips devouring, pin swapping, memorabilia peddling madness that is English Football.

Additionally, Fever Pitch is the ONLY modernly set British film i've seen that did not contain a single refference to American culture, film, TV, music, nothing...

A totally home grown Brit flick which (to use an American sporting analogy) hits it out of the park. Shamelessly sublime.

The cover of the video is COMPLETELY misleading. I must admit that I never expected a film about a football fan to be either interesting or in-depth. I was surprised to find its US release under "New Arrivals" at my video store, and being a fan of Firth, I decided to give it a try. It's a very human story, and it is well-done. Nick Hornby's script is excellent, and he actually managed to pull me, a non-rabid fan of football, into understanding a little of what his character was going through. The inclusion of the childhood scenes was great for setting up why the character is still human, though he initially appears insane when taken in the greater context of human existence. He was portrayed very effectively by Firth, whose previous stand-out performance as Mr. Darcy in "Pride and Prejudice" contrasts so sharply with the character that he plays in this film that I found myself almost cringing at the immaturity and madness portrayed by him...until the character grew on me and I felt more than just pity for him. Ruth Gemmell did a fine job of portraying Sarah, a woman who was frustratingly in love with a man who loved a sport. I liked watching the growth of both of their characters throughout the film. The thing that struck me about this film was the reality and "humanness" of it. I could see such a thing happening in actual life, and I appreciated the portrayal of the everyday struggles of learning to refocus your priorities and commit to loving someone.

Late in 1999, this film finally became available in the US. If you are a soccer fan (or a fanatic of any sport), you will relate to this movie. This is an autobiographical book by Nick Hornby, a long-time Arsenal fan, who also did the screenplay. Incidently, the book is considered one of the best soccer books ever written. For those who liked High Fidelity, a book also written by Nick Hornby, and reset in Chicago, they will enjoy the romance of Fever Pitch, the movie. Colin Firth from Shakespeare in Love is excellent.

By now you would have read enough reviews to know about the story and the characters.

So here's my own opinion of Fever Pitch...

Like the DVD cover states for this movie, "Love footie, hate footie, you'll love Fever Pitch". Fever Pitch defines how hundreds of millions of football fans feel around the world, who are as passionate as Paul (Colin Firth) is about Arsenal FC. The relationship with his father, how he handles his classroom and the teacher next door at the school are all realistic, especially if you're living in an obsessive football supporters world, or any sport for that matter...

The fact that the Americans took this great script and tried to turn into a story of their own (See: The Perfect Catch) shows that it had great appeal on the other side of the Atlantic. The Americans sure have been lacking ideas of late and some have resorted to trying to remake old English classics, with somewhat less success.. e.g. The Italian Job, Alfie and now Fever Pitch.

In Fever Pitch, you could see Colin Firth's potential to be more than just an English character actor and we all know where those early efforts have gotten him today.

A funny film, well worth watching if you've ever been passionate about anything in life, and regardless of what team you support (except for Sp*rs probably)...