Starring: Drew Barrymore, Jimmy Fallon

9 out of 10 stars Peter Farrelly and Bobby Farrelly make so-so comedies, but they make very good romantic comedies or, at least, romantic comedies for guys. In Fever Pitch they take on most males' great loves, women and sports, while also making some interesting comparisons between love and obsession, infatuation and commitment, and success and failure.

Loosely based upon the Nick Hornby novel, which was actually about his fascination with football (soccer in the U.S.), Fever Pitch gets the movie treatment from screenwriters Babaloo Mandel and Lowell Ganz as they switched the sports obsession from the footballing Arsenals to the baseballing Boston Red Socks. So, we have an acclaimed novelist, two very serviceable screenwriters and the directing duo responsible for There's Something About Mary; the only way this could get any better was if the Socks won the World Series.

As many know that's exactly what happened last fall, at the close of filming, which rather solidifies this film as a serendipitous convergence of fact and fantasy. With the exception of one longish, gratuitous very-Farrelly scene it deserves the following wind of historical events. Fever Pitch is funny--that's true--but it's also about something.

Ben (Jimmy Fallon) is completely obsessed with the Boston Red Socks. So much so that it's been a problem in his relationship with women. When he meets Lindsey Meeks (Drew Barrymore) he realizes he's out of his league but he asks her out anyway. She turns him down but her three friends (KaDee Strickland, Marissa Janet Winokur and Ione Skye) point out that all of her other slick boyfriends had no real substance so Lindsey reconsiders. When Ben arrives, flowers in hand, he finds Lindsey violently ill from food poisoning. He goes above and beyond the call of duty during the evening including cleaning up her bathroom. She begins to fall for him.

When baseball season arrives, however, Ben must tell his deep, dark secret. Not only is he a baseball fanatic he's the worst of the worst, he's a Boston Red Socks fanatic. As woefully, hilariously related in The Curse of the Bambino Socks fans, up to last year, were a special breed. They seemed to be the poster child of frustrated hopes, watching fate cruelly, gleefully snatch ultimate victory from their grasp time and time again. There was a certain mystique of misery being a Red Socks fan and Ben is the ultimate Red Socks fan.

He's also got premium seats, right behind home plate, that his uncle willed to him (the same uncle who made him such a benighted creature, taking an eight-year old Ben to his first game). Ben carefully explains that his mania is of a certain type, beyond reason, beyond debate. She seems understanding about it all, which emboldens him. He's so sure of his feelings for Lindsey that he invites her to sit with him on opening day. But as the season wears on Lindsey finds herself chafing at the extremes of Ben's obsession. Can their relationship survive a Red Socks season, even a winning one?

The Farrellys bring their certain love and knowledge of the Red Socks to the film. The funniest moment in their last film, the conjoined twin movie Stuck on You was concerned with a slight against the Red Socks when a bore taunts the heroes with a Bill Buckner comment. They know the agony of being a fan.

They also pick music that I like, most of it complete throwbacks to the `70s, but always jaunty, feel-good tunes. They also keep their scatological humor out of Fever Pitch. With the exception of one unfortunately overdone scene, an intervention to help save Ben from despair, the film is just made better by their presence.

The script, underpinned by Hornby's understanding of human relationships (also done in fine form in High Fidelity, also based on a book of his), considers more than just the common, will-they-or-won't-they elements of typical romantic comedies. There is, first and foremost, the question of compromising for a relationship. What does that mean? How far will you go? How far is too far? When does compromising mean losing critical elements of yourself and when is evolution? There's also the parallels between love for women and love for a particular team. Is a new romance like the start of a new baseball season? A clean slate? Is a committed fan someone who, as Lindsey says, "can love under the best and the worst conditions?" Perhaps some of the comparisons and contrasts are too facile, but they certainly feel right.

Jimmy Fallon is also quite right as Ben, a skinny, slightly dopey-looking protagonist. He's appearance is off-putting and punkish but he's affable and warm, and our appreciation of Ben mirrors that of Lindsey. It's probably the Farrelly's behind it but Ben mentions that Lindsey sometimes talks out of the side of her mouth, like "an adorable stroke victim." Fallon carries off that dialogue as being both bitingly true, but not mean-spirited. (Now, if I can just get over him getting so ridiculously excited over the resurrection of Guns-n-Roses at the MTV Music Awards we can all move on.)

Drew Barrymore plays the quintessential love interest again. She really isn't doing anything new here but years from now they'll be creating "Barrymore Romantic Classics" box sets on DVD. There's a half-hearted attempt to make Lindsey more flinty than some of her other romantic roles, but not much.

But there's a pivotal moment, a simple moment, when Ben and his zealous friends see the team players eating dinner after a heartbreaking loss, where Ben realizes that there's a lot more to life than sports. And there's more to Fever Pitch than just sports.