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Well one of them lives in Fever Pitch, a film based on a novel about a game called football. This is a sport that drives grown men to tears and grown women to distraction, ripping relationships apart while forging bonds on the terrace. For some nothing else in life matters, everything that they do is designed to leave them time spare to watch, play and argue about football. To the outsider Paul Ashworth (Colin Firth) is a perfect example of the species. He teaches English to unruly students but prefers to coach the school squad, dreaming of success via their immature talent. As a season ticket holder with Arsenal, Paul knows that his chosen team are much less likely to top out the league so his sights are set substantially lower. Yet by looking at this unkempt exterior, new teacher Sarah Hughes (Ruth Gemmell) misses the point.
Paul's love of Arsenal takes root in early childhood, against all the odds. Living with his mother (Lorraine Ashbourne) in Maidenhead, far from the roar of the crowds, Paul catches his first game in the company of an often-absent father (Neil Pearson). A moment of epiphany. Swept along in the mob emotion, lifted by glory, crushed by torsos, Paul connects. This is why, eighteen years later, he lives and dies by the flick of a boot and the dodgy ruling of an obviously blind linesman. This is the strength of Nick Hornby's novel, the basis of its broad appeal to the unwashed masses. His writing mirrors the experience of a million kids; that desperate wish to kick a few balls about on the hallowed turf of Wembley and the transferral of that dream to your chosen team. So moving is Hornby's fiction that even the non-fan can buy into his fantasy.
David Evans, the director of Fever Pitch, grasps this opportunity with alacrity. In his hands the story shines with a fan's unwavering enthusiasm, even as the wisdom of their passion is questioned and doubted. The settings are notably pedestrian and the dialogue is intentionally ordinary, for the very good reason that this is exactly the routine by which most people live. Hornby's brilliance is that he can write scenes which precisely replay the typical male conversation; the actions and reactions are coarse and stumbling yet they posses a functional, rough poetry. Paul and his best mate Steve (Mark Strong) spend endless hours analysing, and agonising over, the fluctuating fortunes of Arsenal. With snatches of historic matches artfully woven into the film, Evans gives us the flavour of their devotion.
The cast members do their very best with the script and, mostly, succeed in papering over the joins. Firth proves fully able to take on the form of Paul, a man whose mind is permanently elsewhere; usually he's listening to radio commentary, sometimes just replaying old goals. Paul really only pays attention when the subject turns to football. Strong is adequate as second fiddle, though we never get to know him in any depth. Gemmell's the one who matters, since her arrival leads us into this epic struggle of love and misunderstanding, gives us two people separated by a simple game. Her acting is delightfully nuanced, sweeping across the full spectrum of feeling. It's a pity then that Fever Pitch seems to wrap up too easily, turning out a finale which is structurally satisfying but otherwise a bit of a con.
So, will Fever Pitch appeal to someone who cares nothing for soccer, to use the formal term? Yes, if only because the story isn't actually about football, it's about the fans that adore it. Clips of real-life matches are sprinkled liberally throughout the movie but fortunately they form a greatest hits collection of neat passes and inspired goals. The experience is nowhere near as painful as watching an entire 90 minutes! Maybe the fact that this is a thoroughly English tale will put some folk off? Perhaps but then they'll miss one of the few recent films to delve into the heart of what it means to be born and bred here. Not at all like the land of Shakespeare methinks, merely an environment shaped by the glacial weight of a thousand sitcoms.
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