- Paul
Robert D. Siegel’s Big Fan is an engrossing look into a diehard fan. It’s completely engaging and tragic and uplifting all at once.
Paul from Staten Island lives in boxes. He’s a parking garage attendant. He lives with his mother. He has one friend. He has one obsession: Giants’ football (though he won’t dare step foot inside Giants stadium – real fans watch from the parking lot while tailgating). He’s got one hobby: calling into a sports radio station. A meticulous hobby, he doesn’t just call in. He writes down what he’ll say, rehearses it out loud before he calls in and after he "nails it," he casually tells his friend that he was just wingin’ it.
Paul won’t take your pity; he chooses this life. It’s not that he’s socially awkward or can’t interact with society in a larger way, it’s that he doesn’t want to. It's his dedication and unconditional love of something greater than himself that he values and when we recognizes that others lack that kind of passion he's uninterested in them.
Paul and his friend tail their favorite player, Quantrell Bishop, to a club one night and through some unfortunate miscommunication Paul gets brutally beaten up by Bishop. Putting his love for football over his own self interest Paul tries to ignore how his hobby turned on him. From this choice spirals a host of effects that Paul fights to regain control of. All of this ends with a climatic showdown with his radio rival in a scene that is pure brilliance and pure Paul, through and through. You’ll cheer. Trust me.
Paul is played by comedian Patton Oswalt and holy hell does he do an amazing job. A character like this could easily spin into caricature or stereotype, but with subtlety and honesty in Oswalt's performance it never does.
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