Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Fever Pitch Blu-ray Movie Review

Isn't "pitch" a baseball term?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 26, 2014

Leave it to us Americans to insist on a literal interpretation of the title Fever Pitch. When this amiable if never totally moving British comedy was remade in 2005 as a domestic outing starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, the Farrelly Brothers and co-adapters Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz set the story of two mismatched lovers in the world of baseball fandom, rather than the original’s focus on soccer (or football, as it’s called across the pond). This was perhaps at least partially understandable, for part of the story’s conceit is that the guy in the tale has long nursed an almost obsessive affection for a team that seems genetically incapable of winning, and while there may indeed be American football teams who would fall into that category, what better sporting franchise (other than the Cubs perhaps) could there have been in 2005 than the Boston Red Sox and their improbable victory in the 2004 World Series? (Lost fans may recall that one of the series’ funniest moments was when Ben finally tried to catch Jack up on world events outside of the island and told Jack of the Sox winning the Series, information which Jack reacted to incredulously, insisting it had to be bogus.) This 1997 version stars Colin Firth as Paul Ashworth, a fictionalized version of the source book’s real life fan slash author, Nick Hornby. Paul is a decent guy who works as an English teacher at a somewhat rowdy North London school, but he nurses an all consuming passion for his local football team, Arsenal. Arsenal, unlike the Sox, actually had had spurts of wins throughout its long history, but was in a fallow period as the film opens. Paul has been a fan since his young boyhood, as is shown in a number of flashbacks which recount his introduction to the rambunctious world of British soccer aficionados courtesy of Paul’s often absent father. In fact Paul starts to think of other Arsenal fans as his extended family, something that remains as a subtext throughout his adult life, creating some obstacles when Paul becomes romantically involved with a new teacher at his school, a woman who is resolutely uninterested in anything and everything to do with soccer.

While the laws of physics tell us that opposites attract, the perhaps even more immutable laws of romantic comedy clearly stipulate that opposites must first repel, and that’s certainly the case when Sarah Hughes (Ruth Gemmell) starts working at the school where Paul has held sway for several years. Sarah occupies the room next to Paul’s, and while she’s busy instructing her students that she’s to be referred to only as Ms. Hughes (“not Miss, not Mrs. Ms., got that?”), Paul is next door whipping his kids into a football chant frenzy. Sarah of course is not amused.

When Sarah confides her frustration to her best friend and flatmate Jo (Holly Aird), Jo wisely opines that Sarah and Paul will be “shagging on the carpet” at no time. Sarah bets Jo an entirely new carpet should that eventuality ever come to pass. Things seem to be getting even more prickly at Parents’ Night, when Sarah fails to connect with her students’ folks while Paul holds court to a series of equally football obsessed fans. However, Fever Pitch perhaps defies expectation by having Paul and Sarah jump into the sack (“Not on the carpet,” Sarah quips, to Paul’s consternation, “I can’t afford it”) rather quickly, bypassing the typical “I can’t stand him/her” histrionics that any genre lovers know going into these types of films will ultimately fall by the wayside.

As the relationship between Paul and Sarah blossoms, the film also details a series of flashbacks which give some insight into Paul’s nearly lifelong “other” love affair—with soccer. His father was often in absentia, and when a series of boring dinners out finally reached its breaking point, they attended an Arsenal football game together, an event which changed Paul’s life forever. Suddenly Paul felt like he was part of something bigger, and the sense of community and camaraderie became incredibly important to him.

Fever Pitch’s screenplay (by Hornby himself) makes some passing attempts to get into the psychology of Paul and why exactly he’s so enamored of the sport, and it won’t come as any big surprise that the estrangement of his parents and his need for a father figure probably play important parts. The film is interesting in that it examines fandom while not really delving into the team that fires up such passion in its followers. We know a bit of the win-loss record of Arsenal, and even the names of a few of its players, but when the film delivers its expectedly triumphant denouement, there’s surprisingly little emotional heft to the moment.

Interestingly, the film seems to do better with regard to its perhaps more rote romantic comedy examination of two mismatched souls trying to meet in the middle (so to speak). Sarah doesn’t suffer football fools gladly, and after an especially harrowing sequence at a game, it’s not hard to understand her despair that Paul doesn’t seem to grasp why she feels the whole “fan thing” is insane. But even aside from the football aspect, Fever Pitch often finds some wry and amusing beats in the developing relationship between the two, especially after an unplanned event seems to have thrown them both for a loop.

Fever Pitch may not totally gel as an incisive commentary on fan culture mixed with more traditional rom-com tropes, but it's buoyed by the effortless charisma of Colin Firth, looking surprisingly rumpled and lived in throughout the film (I'll spare you my wife's exclamations of delight over his appearance as she watched the film). Gemmell, who rather strangely hasn't had much fame on this side of the pond, is nicely uptight, as befits her character, but always empathetic. The supporting cast features a number of very strong turns, especially by Mark Strong (whom some viewers may recognize from his recent Jaguar commercials) as Paul's best friend.

Fever Pitch Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fever Pitch is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Fans who tend to react almost reflexively when they see a Universal logo on a catalog title may be at least somewhat heartened by the look of this transfer. I'm not going to state that no denoising was applied here, for grain does seem minimal much of the time, but there is fine grain easily noticeable throughout this presentation, especially in more brightly lit outdoor sequences (not an easily met bar, considering this is set in a cloudy London). Contrast is generally strong, but occasionally seems just slightly blown out (see screenshot 17). Colors are generally accurate looking, though not overly vivid. The elements utilized for this transfer are in generally good shape, though there are some very minor flecks that show up on a few occasions.

Fever Pitch Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fever Pitch's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix is quite boisterous a lot of the time, nicely detailing the (in some cases literally) riotous ambience of a British soccer match. Dialogue and the film's nice use of source cues are also rendered with excellent fidelity. Dynamic range is surprisingly wide for this type of film, and the track has absolutely no damage or issues to report. It's worth noting that some of the British accents in the film are rather thick and therefore might be difficult for American ears to decipher, and this release has no subtitles.

Fever Pitch Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Isolated Score Track is presented via DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. As with most of these releases, this track does not include the source cues.


• Commentary with Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman. Kirgo admits to loving the film, and Redman admits to loving "football", and both of those things comes through clearly in this enjoyable if somewhat lightweight commentary. Redman talks about the British zeitgeist of the era being portrayed, and Kirgo gives some biographical data on various players.

Fever Pitch Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fever Pitch is an often sweet little film and it offers Firth in his evidently irresistible romantic comedy mode. The film doesn't quite connect the dots with regard to its supposed insight into why fans behave so inexplicably at times, but the chemistry between Firth and Gemmell is excellent and the film has a number of nicely nuanced small scale laughs along the way. This Blu-ray offers very good video and audio and comes Recommended.