Eddie the
Eagle
(2016)
Eddie the Eagle could easily have been as embarrassing as his
presence was to the British Olympic team, had it been allowed to turn into a
Norman Wisdom-esque, maximum gurning, comedy prat stick-tacular. Eddie would
probably even have got the girl at the end. Which isn’t to say the movie has
much in the way of fidelity to the facts (the real Michael Edwards said it was
about 5% accurate), or that it doesn’t wallow in superficially conjured,
cloying life-affirmation, but Dexter Fletcher’s third big screen directorial
jaunt mostly surmounts the snares that come with the territory, thanks to a
supremely winning and dedicated performance from Taron Egerton, one that makes
you care about a real-life caricature.
The
physical transformation is impressive enough; Egerton, the latest handsome
young British export everyone wants for their next project, becomes a bit of a
sight, all protruding jaw, ungainly physique and frightful whiskers. More than
that, though, he fills in and adds substance to the broad strokes that are
Simon Kelton and Sean Macaulay’s screenplay; I can only imagine how enfeebled
this would have been with the rumoured Rupert Grint in the lead. Like a proper Rocky story, but by way of a very British
loser, the writers give Eddie an even bigger mountain to climb than the real
Eddie, in their “based on a true story”,
and have him hampered at every turn by unsympathetic officials (personified by
a magnificently snobby, elitist Tim McInnerny), advancing by dint of sheer
doggedness and good-natured gumption.
It’s a
classic aspirational, against-the-odds tale, seen in the same week as Zootropolis/ Zootopia/ Zoomania.
Otherwise disparate in style and content, both find their protagonists’ parents
and authority figures attempting to divert their heroes from the path to fulfilment
(the makers tactfully leave out that Eddie failed to qualify for the ‘94 and ’98
Olympics because the spoil-sport committee raised qualification standards). Of
course, Judy Hopps is actually really good at what she does, while Eddie gets
points simply for showing up.
And being a
character. We love a character, and so did the crowds and media at the ’88
Winter Olympics. The part about disgruntled team mates objecting to his
stealing their thunder is dead-on, but Eddie
the Eagle successfully pulls the trick of making Eddie both a clumsy,
hapless, hopeless joke and a figure
emblematic of purity of motive and intent. If that’s sentimental, well, it
works.
Hugh
Jackman’s (fictional; Eddie was actually trained by a couple of Americans) inebriated
trainer is an unreconstituted cliché, and his plotline of redemption by way of
a Chris Walken cameo is rather superfluous. Yet he has chemistry with Egerton,
and the picture very much needed his type of mentor/ sounding board. Keith
Allen and Jo Hartley are likewise integral as Eddie’s parents, inhabiting
traditionally furnished roles of dissuasive dad and supporting mum. Fletcher,
who sneaks in a cameo for his old Press
Gang cohort Paul Reynolds… as a reporter… is sensible enough to let keep
the performances front-and-centre, but knows exactly how to portray the
vertiginous thrill of the jump, and only really shows off once, with a CGI-assisted
Jackman 90-foot plunge.
Matthew
Margeson (this being a Matthew Vaughn production, he previously co-wrote the Kingsman score) provides a jolly, upbeat
‘80s-styled synth soundtrack, exactly what you’d expect of Chariots of Fire if it accompanied a plasterer by trade. Which
rather underlines that you’d be impossibly grouchy not to be pulled along by
the picture, even as you recognise its posing represents an all-too familiar
shorthand (and thus guaranteed export market) for the British film industry.
Egerton is magnificent though, and is largely responsible for making Eddie the Eagle soar. A bit of a shame
he’s soon going to be wasting his time on Robin
Hood: Origins nonsense, then.
