Perfect Catch, The
Also reviewed by:
Uncle Cliff
I expected this film to be crap, a sugary, sappy love story, but I had some hope of it being better than the usual as it is based on the nick Hornby book Fever Pitch (Fever Pitch though is about soccer, they’ve cleverly transferred it to baseball to appeal to American audiences). I liked High Fidelity and About a Boy, Hornby’s other novels turned films, so this one would at least have something going for it. What I didn’t expect was that the film would be so crap I walked off to wash dishes for ten minutes about an hour or so in. Oh yes, it’s bad...
And I am not a total romantic film hater. I can respect if things are done the right way. It is a genre that is obvious and predictable, even at its best, but there are films that push the right buttons at the right times and make you feel for the characters, even cry for them. The Notebook pushes the right buttons. The Bridges of Madison County. I’d even say Never Been Kissed works on some level. Though these films are so predictable and blatant, they have something about them. Characters, conflict, things that you can recognise and have some understanding as to why some people will be into them. The Perfect Catch is lacking these elements.
First off there is no conflict. There is no raising the stakes, no forbidden romance, nothing. There is no reason why these two people should not be together. Nothing comes up that should stop them being together. The only x-factor is that he is a baseball fanatic. They talk about his love of baseball, deal with it and move on. There is no conflict there. What’s worse, Jimmy Fallon is too likeable as the male lead. There is nothing bad about him. He impresses her friends, her parents, everyone likes this guy. So the film is flat. You are waiting for some sort of conflict or road block to come up but it never does, not until right near the end when they bring in that issue that will make or break their relationship. And it is the worst deal-breaker I have ever seen. At this point you do not feel for the characters, you just think he’s a moron.
The second thing is the characters are boring. Their interactions are boring. The scenes of them talking to their friends are boring. It’s like watching scenes from a Kmart catalogue come to life with such watery conversations about nothing. Barrymore’s character is just a distant business chick with no real personality pushing forward. In fact, she never seems to really give a crap about his baseball obsession. It’s just an hour and a half of normal life till they have the break up, the seeing other people section, then the all too sweet ‘we were meant to be together after all’ scene to finish. Nothing ever feels at stake, nothing ever pushes the emotion up. In fact I’m getting bored even writing about it.