Realism and the Rom-Com
I didn’t see Fever Pitch when it came out in 2005. At that time, everything Nick Hornby wrote was being made into a feature (About a Boy, High Fidelity, etc). Fever Pitch had been a feature, too, but it was English, and about soccer, so why not remake it? And instead of Arsenal, why not have the team be the Red Sox? This was, after all, the year after they broke the 86 year “curse” that plagued them, when they finally won the World Series after coming back to beat the Yankees after falling to a 3–0 deficit in the ALCS.
Fever Pitch stars Jimmy Fallon as math teacher-cum-Sox-savant Ben Wrightman, who’s still single at age 30 (horrors!). He meets Drew Barrymore’s Lindsey Meeks when Ben brings his star math pupils to Lindsey’s office (her firm has something to do with finance and private jets), and sparks fly. Everything seems perfect at first — Ben endears himself to Lindsey’s friends and their husbands, and finds Lindsey’s parents tee times at the local country club — until one day his secret emerges: he’s the biggest Sox fan in the world and not ready to let go of that, even when faced with the best relationship of his life. (Note: how Lindsey doesn’t see this coming after spending time in Ben’s apartment, which is covered in Sox merch and memorabilia, is beyond me, but what’s a rom-com without that willing suspension of disbelief)
You see where this is going, so I won’t spoil it for you. Ben struggles mightily with who he is and who he could be, if he was only willing to grow up and sell his $125,000 season tickets (on a teacher’s salary, back to that willing suspension). Whether he does or doesn’t is beside the point. There’s only one romantic comedy that ends on a sour note and it’s perfection and that’s Annie Hall (which Lindsey professes to be her favorite film of all time, the only thing she and I have in common). And while it may be unfashionable to speak well of Woody these days, those of us of a certain age recall a time when he could do no wrong, and Annie Hall will stand the test of time as the best romantic comedy that doesn’t end with the couple living happily ever after.
Fever Pitch was not a film I‘d been dying to see, but as my 12 year-old is a Sox fan who likes Jimmy Fallon, and my wife enjoys rom-coms, I figured it would be acceptable Saturday night viewing. And but for a few discreet sex scenes, copious alcohol consumption, and a scene in which Willie Garson inexplicably shaves Jimmy’s balls, it was.
There’s only one problem with rom-coms: there’s not a shred of truth in them. No one meets like that, no one lives like that, no one overcomes adversity like that, and if any of them bothered to show what happens next to the lovebirds, my guess is it wouldn’t be a pretty picture. Before Annie Hall, the best example of a couple who struggled against all odds to find love, only to realize it might not be for the best, was The Graduate. The scene that closes the film, as Ben and Elaine are on the bus and their wild-eyed glee dissolves to “What the fuck have we done” is by far the most realistic, if depressing, end to any romantic comedy.
I can relate. That “WTF” has been a theme in terms of my adult relationships. I know I’m far from the first to make this observation, but for every Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and other pablum Richard Curtis churned out, there’s a real-life Ben and Elaine on the road to nowhere.
Look, I’m all for escapism. One doesn’t see every Star Wars film and TV show (as I have), or every MCU film and TV show (as I have) unless one wants to be transported from reality. But seeing relationships portrayed as escapist fun? Nuh-uh, can’t do it. Maybe that’s because of where I am in my life. If there are others out there with the perfect life and the perfect marriage, the 2.5 kids and the dog, more power to you. I have precious little time in my life to spend escaping reality, and when I do, it’s gonna be on my terms.
So go Jimmy. Go Drew. Live happily ever after. Have babies you swaddle in Red Sox onesies. Hope Lindsey’s promotion doesn’t get in the way of Ben’s season tickets (or vice-versa). Somehow I don’t think that’s gonna happen, but hey, people can dream, right?
Just don’t make me watch it.
