'Eddie the Eagle': Funny, touching sports tale
A true sports legend, British Olympian Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards was one of the most talked-about athletes at the 1988 winter games in Calgary, where he set an all-time British record in the 70-meter ski-jumping event.
A true sports legend, British Olympian Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards was one of the most talked-about athletes at the 1988 winter games in Calgary, where he set an all-time British record in the 70-meter ski-jumping event.
Of course, he was the first Brit in about 60 years to assay the trying, dangerous sport at the Olympics.
His story is told in Eddie the Eagle, a triumphant, feel-good, laugh-out-loud, sports biopic. Eddie is portrayed in a star turn by Taron Egerton, the versatile English actor who was comic and touching in his breakout role as Eggsy, the lovable spy-in-training in Kingsman: The Secret Service.
Everything I just wrote about Eddie is true. He really did break a series of British records that year, and he was an explosive presence in the media - reporters covering the games couldn't get enough of him.
But the copy they wrote about Eddie hardly celebrated his athletic prowess: Eddie jumped for distances that rarely topped 65 or 70 meters. Skiers who actually won medals that year attained nearly twice that distance. The stories beamed around the world about Eddie were human-interest pieces that talked of how the perpetually awkward, working-class man-child had taken up ski-jumping only a year before the games.
He was determined to become an Olympian, no matter what. He already had tried his hand at various sports and eventually qualified in ski jumping because the rules hadn't been updated since the 1920s, when it was easier to make the grade.
Helmed by actor and director Dexter Fletcher (Hotel Babylon), Eddie the Eagle is a breezy, eminently fun confection that recounts Eddie's remarkably odd, touching story.
The film's success is due in large part to Hugh Jackman (The Wolverine), who adds a touch of spice - and a bucketload of profanity - as Bronson Peary, a burned-out, alcoholic, former ski-jumper-turned-groundskeeper so impressed by Eddie's irrepressible energy and optimism, he becomes his coach - and in the process redeems himself.
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