Review: Eddie the Eagle

Victory is oftentimes in the doing rather than the winning. Achievement after years of struggle and rejection makes the triumph all the sweeter. The Olympic Games have witnessed some of the greatest and also unlikeliest figures. Take the Jamaican bobsled team, four men who emerged as folk heroes and media darlings during the 1988 Winter Olympic Games. They didn't win any medals, but they won the hearts of everyone who watched the Games. So, too, did another unexpected athlete: British ski jumper Michael "Eddie" Edwards.

Eddie (Taron Egerton) always dreamed of being an Olympian despite being saddled with thick glasses, leg braces for his weak knees, and a prodigious incapacity for any sport he tried. The leg braces eventually went away, but the glasses and athletic incompetency were not so easily shuffled off though he was passably good enough to get himself rejected by the British Olympic Committee. "You're not Olympic material," he's repeatedly told. His working-class father (Keith Allen) agrees - Eddie's meant to follow in his footsteps and be a plasterer, not an athlete.

Eddie will not be denied his lifelong dream. When he learns that he has a better chance of making it into the Olympics as a ski jumper (Britain had no ski-jump ramps and the last time they had someone compete in a ski-jump competition was back in 1929), he heads off to Garmisch, Germany to try his hand at the sport. Even though he'd never jumped in his life.

There's a certain fairy tale quality to the way screenwriters Sean Macaulay and Simon Kelton depict Eddie's attempts to teach himself how to jump. His first tries the 15m jump and after once landing the jump, he decides he's ready to try the 40m jump. Of course, the 40m proves far more difficult and he seeks out Bronson Peary for some advice. "Give up," the washed-up former champion replies. Peary is a fictional character - a badass who drinks whiskey for breakfast and for whom the biting temperatures are but a warm summer breeze. He's played by Hugh Jackman, whose lithe and graceful athleticism is a pleasure to watch. Jackman doesn't try too hard to convey the necessary swagger - a bit of gruff charm, a dollop of grouchy pride there - and he doesn't have to. This is a role where star quality matters and Jackman has it in spades. So much so that he nearly steals the movie from Egerton, who is almost ridiculously endearing as Eddie.

Eddie the Eagle is unabashed in its unfaltering devotion to its "overcoming all odds" template. It means to be a crisp and cheery confection and it wholly succeeds on that level. The film has a great deal of heart and soul and, though the story is all too predictable even if you were familiar with Eddie's heroic failure, it's still hard not to be uplifted by his tale.

Eddie the Eagle

Directed by: Dexter Fletcher

Written by: Sean Macaulay, Simon Kelton

Starring: Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Jim Broadbent, Christopher Walken, Keith Allen, Jo Hartley, Iris Berben, Edvin Endre, Tim McInnerny, Marc Benjamin