Eddie the Eagle

Eddie the Eagle is a 2016 biographical sports film directed by Dexter Fletcher. The film stars Taron Egerton as Michael Edwards, a British skier who in 1988 became the first competitor to represent Great Britain in Olympic ski jumping since 1928. Hugh Jackman, Christopher Walken, Iris Berben and Jim Broadbent co-star. The film had its first public screening at the Butt-Numb-A-Thon in Austin, Texas on December 12, 2015 and its world premiere at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on January 26, 2016. The film was released in the United States on February 26, 2016 by 20th Century Fox and in the United Kingdom on March 28, 2016 by Lionsgate. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and in 2017 it was nominated for the Empire Award for Best British Film. Plot In 1973, after a long period of medical treatment for walking difficulties, ten-year-old Michael "Eddie" Edwards dreams of Olympic glory, trying his hand at various Olympic events and failing. His mother encourages him, while his father discourages him. As a teen, Eddie gives up his dream of participating in the Summer Games in favour of skiing in the Winter Games. Although skilled at the sport, he is rejected by British Olympic officials for being uncouth. Realising he could make the team as a ski jumper (a sport which the United Kingdom has not participated in for six decades), Eddie decamps to a training facility in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany, where the more seasoned jumpers belittle him.