This was remade for the American market, made into a baseball movie, starring Jimmy Fallon. Can you imagine? I saw Fallon in Woody Allen's movie Anything Else, and he was anything but good. Don't waste your time on a remake, see the real thing. (If you must watch a Hornby story transplanted to the US then let it be High Fidelity.)
Paul (Colin Firth) and Sarah (Ruth Gemmell) are teachers in a North London comp., parallel lines slowly drawing closer together. Thing is, Paul's heart is already 99% committed to something else. Arsenal. It's eighteen years since the North London side last won the First Division title and this year (1989) they stand a real chance. Does Paul have room in his life for a girlfriend, or even a wife and maybe a family? Can Sarah tolerate sharing her man with eleven other guys?
It's most enjoyable seeing Firth play against type. All that woodenness has disappeared, well mostly. When the prospect of spending the night with Sarah suddenly appears he looks like someone's just died. Watching him explode when Sarah, most unwisely, says "It's just a game, Paul", is most gratifying. I've never seen Ruth Gemmell in anything else, and I'm sad about that. She keeps Sarah's snippiness inside the lines. Excellent support from Holly Aird, Ken Stott, Mark Strong and the kids who play the high school students.
The movie bounces between scenes of Paul's childhood, his burgeoning love for Arsenal, the club more than anything, as a surrogate family, and his late twenties adulthood. The movie is good on period detail - well, it's only twelve years after the period - and is well acted, but it feels strangely disjointed, something that must come down to the way it has been edited. Were there additional scenes that got cut? At 98mins it's a good length for a comedy, but it feels like more scenes could be useful, if only to flesh out Paul and Sarah's relationship. Scenes tend to just break off, abruptly, and :-
An enjoyable film, a must for Firth fans, and Arsenal fans no doubt, but not as good as it might have been.
Paul (Colin Firth) and Sarah (Ruth Gemmell) are teachers in a North London comp., parallel lines slowly drawing closer together. Thing is, Paul's heart is already 99% committed to something else. Arsenal. It's eighteen years since the North London side last won the First Division title and this year (1989) they stand a real chance. Does Paul have room in his life for a girlfriend, or even a wife and maybe a family? Can Sarah tolerate sharing her man with eleven other guys?
It's most enjoyable seeing Firth play against type. All that woodenness has disappeared, well mostly. When the prospect of spending the night with Sarah suddenly appears he looks like someone's just died. Watching him explode when Sarah, most unwisely, says "It's just a game, Paul", is most gratifying. I've never seen Ruth Gemmell in anything else, and I'm sad about that. She keeps Sarah's snippiness inside the lines. Excellent support from Holly Aird, Ken Stott, Mark Strong and the kids who play the high school students.
The movie bounces between scenes of Paul's childhood, his burgeoning love for Arsenal, the club more than anything, as a surrogate family, and his late twenties adulthood. The movie is good on period detail - well, it's only twelve years after the period - and is well acted, but it feels strangely disjointed, something that must come down to the way it has been edited. Were there additional scenes that got cut? At 98mins it's a good length for a comedy, but it feels like more scenes could be useful, if only to flesh out Paul and Sarah's relationship. Scenes tend to just break off, abruptly, and :-
An enjoyable film, a must for Firth fans, and Arsenal fans no doubt, but not as good as it might have been.