"Where are you going now Eddie?" his dad called after from a window as Eddie drove in the families ratty plasterer's van.
"I'm going to train as a ski jumper. Bye Dad."
Thus Eddie just showed up at the premiere ski jumping training center facility in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, and began training himself (which was more like practicing suicide) to the jeers of the Norwegian jumpers. To pay his way, while nursing his daily injuries, he worked for the bar maiden running a restaurant at the bottom of the European training hill. Olympic spirit-dedication to the sport-
Then things took a turn. Eddie hooked up with an unlikely mentor (Hugh Jackman) whose winter jacket was a flask of booze (until he recognized in Eddie the true Olympic spirit - dedication to the sport - and began showing up in his old Olympic duds) and after some unorthodox methods of conditioning, Eddie really began to soar, or at least crash less.
Needless to say, in the end, Eddie Edwards set records as a British ski jumper, mainly because he was the whole British Ski Jumping Team.
if you followed the 1988 Olympic Ski Jumping events, you'll certainly remember 'Eddie the Eagle.' That crazy Brit who flew off the 90-meter ski jump just-for-the-hell-of-it.
Or maybe not.
Even though Eddie Edwards was considered an amateur (to which he often parried - "aren't all the athletes in the Olympics amateurs?), or rather more of a virgin ski jumper who had taken up the sport just a year before the 1988 Olympic Winter Games while the seasoned jumpers began their training at age six, he was far from doing it for-the-hell-of-it.
Eddie had dreamed of becoming an Olympic athlete throughout his childhood, though 'dodgy knees' consigned him to wearing a brace on his leg for most of it. Now and again as a lad of ten he would say "bye" to his mum, trundle off to the bus stop with his little lunch box at the ready to hold all the medals he would win, in the hopes of making his Olympic debut.
Hugh Jackman's burnt edged, life's-been-kicking-me-around portrayal of Bronson Peary - Eddie's real life trainer, slugs of bourbon laced with milk.
Keith Allen (Eddie's dad -Terry) and Jo Hartley (Eddie's mum - Janette) showed us the real quality stuff of England's working class parents.
Academy Award winning quality - Jim Broadbent - was fantastic as the slightly cocky BBC Commentator who parsed with a giddy British lilt, "the Eagle has landed," from the Olympic broadcasting booth.
Thumbs up to mark Benton who played the classic mindless stodgy BOA Official.
Young Tom Costello (Eddie at ten ) bore s right into your heart.
Enough said.
Don't miss this one!
EDDIE THE EAGLE
Director: Dexter Fletcher
Writers: Sean Macaulay Simon Kelton
Stars: Taron Egerton Hugh Jackman Tom Costello
This is the kind of movie that used to be the mainstay of Hollywood. Stories that ennoble us. the real lives of those reaching for a goal everyone said was beyond them.
A thought that seems ludicrous these days where in competitions everyone gets a trophy even if they don't show up. I say we're cheating the current crop of young people of seeing how far they can go at anything, how good they really can be, for fear they can't face failure. As if by taking some bold chances they'll be less off. No, they'll be better off. And Eddie Edwards is the living proof. Desire and determination gave Eddie the wings to soar like an eagle.
The lesson learned: it isn't the gold medal or trophy that makes you a success. Just getting out there and pushing yourself beyond all boundaries, that makes you a winner. And as with Eddie, you might also win the hearts of those who watch you try.
On those odd nights his working class dad never failed to retrieve him.
"Where you going son?" he would say to little Eddie standing in the bus shelter, through the ratty window of his beat-up plasterer's van.
"The Olympics dad," Eddie would respond before his dad managed to coax him back home.
This is the stuff that tugs at your heart from the first few frames of the movie.
During the rest of his youth Eddie Edwards managed to bash himself about trying every Olympic sport he could or couldn't possibly succeed at, in fact he was quite well-known at the hospital emergency ward.
He actually made it as far as the final squad of the British downhill ski team from which the 1988 Olympians were chosen. But the stodgy British Olympic committee cast him as a loser, told him he would never be an Olympian.
And yet again, Eddie proved desire and heart wasn't going to stop him from trying. Failure only propelled him to greater heights, literally, once he set his sites on being a ski jumper, flying off a narrow track from dizzying altitudes.
At the '88 Olympics the press couldn't get enough of Eddie. Even more palpable were those snobbish stalwart Alpine fans, at first flabbergasted by his pitifully short landing distances, who became ignited by Eddie's joyful antics and birdlike celebratory dances at the bottom of the slopes. In the midst of him flapping his arms in a victory dance at coming in last - Eddie the Eagle - was christened to waves of rolling cheers from ski jump connoisseurs.
It was like a feel good film from the 80's....oh yeah, that was the idea.
Which thankfully meant no dizzying quick cutting, optical horse-crap or overly manipulated special effects. Director Dexter Fletcher, soooo English, of course got it soooo right. The white knuckle ski jump scenes made you feel as if you were soaring right along with Eddie, oooohhhh, and crashing as well.
if you read through the pages of Eddie's autobiography; "Eddie the Eagle: My Story," you'll think you're hearing the voice of actor Taron Egerton , who did a smash-up job of portraying him in the film . he absorbed the dialect, the demeanor, the innocent essence of the charmingly simple man, an accident waiting to happen, who against all odds made his Olympic dreams come true.