Fever Pitch 2005

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: [The movie] asks what is truly required of growing up, then splits the emotional difference. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The only thing the Farrellys get right is the obsession, but even the most forgiving Red Sox fan will agree their team deserved more than this. Read more

Allison Benedikt, Chicago Tribune: A sweet, faux pas-free, Red Sox-adoring love story based on Nick Hornby's memoir of the same name. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: It's a prettified view of love, for sure, but as Sox fans would surely attest, sometimes fairy tale dreams do come true. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Screenwriters Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel say they had to rewrite on the fly as the team's fortunes changed. Pity the whole movie didn't have that urgency of make-it-up-on-the-spot. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: At times, it works brilliantly, bringing the fanatic (and mostly male) world of baseball geekdom into collision with the planet where women strive for career success and true love, usually with painful disappointment in one department or the other. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: The Sox won the World Series. Rarely have filmmakers had a more wildly improbable happy ending forced on them. Well, you need all the help you can get, divine or otherwise, when your two stars -- Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon -- have no chemistry. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: Stripped of almost all the brothers' usual crudeness, Fever Pitch proves what we've suspected all along: That beneath the gross-out gags and freak-show humor, Peter and Bobby Farrelly are just a couple of lovable romantics. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: The film turns out to be a substantial pleasure as the spirit of the Sox shines through. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: The screenplay, by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, struggles to make up for a fundamental lack of suspense. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: A romantic comedy that flirts with something serious but never gets past the flirting stage. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: This is one of the best movies I've ever seen about what it means to be a diehard fan. Read more

Bob Townsend, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: It's frequently amusing and awfully sweet. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: Barrymore has rarely been so bright and effortlessly charming, but it's all lost on Fallon, who often resembles one of those unfortunate SNL guests who freeze up on live TV, completely out of their element. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: A movie worth catching. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Fever Pitch is respectful and heartfelt about the problems that come with extreme fandom and how they might impinge on the happiness of a person who couldn't care less about Carl Yastrzemski. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: The movie's sentiment is nothing new for the Farrelly brothers, but its complacency certainly is. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: At the movie's core is a question that all couples face: How much of one's identity must a person give up in order to make a relationship work? The filmmakers show good marketing sense in balancing the romantic elements with sports. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: It is very wise about men and women, leisure and responsibility. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: It's been a while since a movie made the game of love this winning. Read more

William Goss, Film.com: ...tries to deal with the messy process of nurturing a proper adult relationship rather than simply shoehorning two lovers into a predictable set of catastrophic circumstances until they finally succumb to one another. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: It has some heart and some laughs, but the sense of emotional risk has been smoothed down to a formulaic nub. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: No matter Hornby's own involvement in bringing Fever Pitch to the screen, the film ranks among the most specious acts of literary adaptation since Troy claimed to have something to do with The Iliad. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: A paean to Boston Red Sox fandom that even a Yankee fan can appreciate. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The filmmakers are split between making the Sox obsession a lovably funny quirk and suggesting that it's haplessly infantile. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: The Curse of the Bambino lives. And by now, it's spread to the backlot. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: Can be funny and endearing when you don't dwell on the black hole that is Jimmy Fallon. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: This thoroughly winning if not especially good romantic comedy by Peter and Bobby Farrelly is loosely based on the Nick Hornby memoir of the same title. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: The key to a romantic comedy working is often whether the filmmakers invest the audience in the plight of the main characters. Do we have a rooting interest in these two getting together? This is something the Farrellys accomplish. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Do not make the mistake of thinking it is a baseball movie. It is a movie about how men and women, filled with love and motivated by the best will in the world, simply do not speak the same emotional language. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: It's sad to watch the kingpins of gross-out try to dial down to cute. Swung at and missed. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The Farrellys, New Englanders by birth, love the Red Sox so much that they forgive their lead character a multitude of sins that, in any of their other movies, they'd be too gentlemanly (and too humane) to ever allow. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: Fallon is rather good, too, by the way -- his self-effacement here becomes him. Read more

Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: If you know anything about romantic comedies and professional baseball, you will find no surprises in Fever Pitch. But you will find a dandy date movie. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Merely competent yet still capable of cracking the Friday lineup and playing to big crowds. If this same movie were a baseball player, it couldn't make the softball team in a sandlot league. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: A romantic comedy with the ultimate in feelgood endings. Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: It's slickly done, pleasantly watchable, but despite Barrymore's ever-charming earnestness, not quite a home run. Read more

Mike Clark, USA Today: Other Hornby screen adaptations are About a Boy and High Fidelity -- superb comedies both and, in Fidelity's case, a treatise on male obsession with far more depth and even more laughs. Read more

Brian Lowry, Variety: One of those nicely grooved pitches with which even a novice ought to be able to connect. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Barely a screwball comedy, let alone a gunk-loaded spitball like There's Something About Mary. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Even Boston Red Sox fans are likely to turn away in disgust. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Suffers from oddly clunky pacing and long, talky passages of little verbal dexterity and zero interest, import or impact. Read more