Eddie the Eagle is Just Great

Taron Egerton and Hugh Jackman in Eddie the Eagle (2015)

If you need a feel-good pick-me-up movie, watch Eddie the Eagle. Lately I haven’t been able to find anything new on Netflix, and these old movies from 6 or 7 years ago keep popping up. I wasn’t all that excited to watch Eddie the Eagle, because sports aren’t really my thing and so by the same logic neither are sports movies. But I did really like Phantom of the Open, and Eddie the Eagle looked like it might be similar, so on one of those “There’s nothing to watch” Saturday nights, we thought, why not?

I’ll confess, the first ten minutes or so were kind of boring. I wasn’t paying much attention. Eddie the Eagle is a sweet kid with dreams of going to the Olympics, but his dreams keep getting beaten down and his dad keeps insisting he would be better off becoming a plasterer. The point at which the movie picks up is when Eddie decides to go to Germany and try his hand at ski jumping so he can become the first ever British ski jumping competitor at the Olympics. When Eddie arrives in Germany, he’s pretty broke and ends up sleeping in the bar-maid’s broom cupboard. The other ski jumpers there don’t give him the time of day but he doesn’t let that stop him and after a successful run on the 15 m ski jump he tries again and again to land the 40 meter jump. That’s when Bronson Peary the snow groomer notices him. Bronson is a former champion ski jumper himself, who was once mentored by Christopher Walken. The addition of Christopher Walken to any movie — even the merest hint of his presence — automatically makes it better.

But back to Bronson. Bronson is an alcoholic cigarette-smoking Hugh Jackman, still looking pretty good in his jeans. At first, Bronson thinks the whole idea of this kid trying to get into the Olympics is preposterous and he runs the gamut from being dismissive of him to downright warning him that if he even so much as attempts the 70 m jump, he’ll be a bag of broken bones. But Eddie doesn’t let that stop him and bit by bit, as the movie goes on, the two men forge a bond.

I won’t give the ending away here, and I wasn’t sure what the ending was going to be for the whole movie. This thing is a comedy, but it still keeps you on tenterhooks because you genuinely care about Eddie. It’s all based on a true story (but don’t look Eddie up until after watching the movie, because otherwise it’ll give it away) — Eddie the Eagle really was this nerdy guy wearing goggle-thick glasses travelling around sleeping in his car and barns, borrowing ski equipment to get where he needed to go.

Eddie the Eagle (20th Century Studios)

It’s hard to watch the movie without becoming very attached to Eddie and thinking that all the people who discouraged him along the way were real dinks, but everyone can redeem themselves. It’s a story of hope, and it’s definitely worth a watch on a “There’s nothing to watch” Saturday night. In fact, it’s worth a watch on any other night too.