Sometimes Always Never: Absolutely!

Sometimes Always Never (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for occasional sexual references
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.31.20

Fans of droll and quirk will love this slice of British whimsy; others are apt to find it much too precious and stylized.

Peter (Sam Riley, left) and his father Alan (Bill Nighy) "forgot" how to connect years ago;
they can't even bond over a game of Scrabble ... even though they're likely to play at
any moment, and in any setting.

Director Carl Hunter and writer Frank Cottrell Boyce clearly studied at the altar of Wes Anderson; Sometimes Always Never — debuting on Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms — has the mildly peculiar atmosphere and character eccentricity of (for example) Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

At the same time, Hunter and Boyce uncork a deeply — at times painfully — intimate story about grief, and the necessity of finding a way to move beyond tragedy.

We meet Alan (Bill Nighy) as he solemnly waits on a deserted Merseyside beach; he has arranged to meet his adult son, Peter (Sam Riley), for a day trip with a potentially fateful conclusion. Their relationship is wary and prickly. We sense that Peter long ago gave up trying to communicate meaningfully with his father, and for good reason; Alan’s cryptic comments and responses always seem three sentences behind, and in some entirely different conversation.

It gradually becomes clear that they’ve long been trying to find Alan’s other son, Michael — Peter’s older brother — who walked out of the house years ago, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. They’re currently chasing down a faint lead: something one or both of them must’ve done many, many times before.

It proves fruitless … although, during their overnight stop at a twee B&B, they meet Margaret (Jenny Agutter) and Arthur (Tim McInnerny), a couple navigating their own, similar grief.

Back at home in Lancashire, Alan — a professional tailor who earned a comfortable living, and is the sole occupant of a well-appointed home — finds that he cannot stand to be alone. He therefore becomes an unannounced guest in Peter’s home, where he’s accepted graciously by the latter’s warm and cheerful wife, Sue (Alice Lowe). She seems to understand and accept her father-in-law’s aloofness and affectations in a way that Peter cannot.

On the other hand, Peter and Sue have given up trying to fathom their teenage son, Jack (Louis Healy), forever buried in front of his computer screen, playing an endless array of first-person shooter games. Jack gives up the bottom berth of his bunk bed, in order to accommodate Alan; what feels like an imposition blossoms into a connection bridged initially by their shared interest in games.

Eddie the Eagle: Truly soars

Eddie the Eagle (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for mildly suggestive material and partial nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.26.16

Winning isn’t everything.

Sometimes merely participating, and doing your best, is enough. More than enough.

When Bronson Peary (Hugh Jackman, left) finally, reluctantly, agrees to help train wannabe
ski-jumper Michael "Eddie" Edwards (Taron Egerton), the task proves an uphill challenge
for a young man with no athletic grace whatsoever.

We tend to forget, after the increasingly overblown sequels, that in his 1976 film debut, Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa merely wanted to “go the distance.” And that’s all he did, which is — in great part — what makes that film such an endearing classic.

British director Dexter Fletcher’s charming Eddie the Eagle is cut from the same cloth. This whimsical underdog saga is fueled by an engaging performance from Taron Egerton, superbly cast as Michael “Eddie” Edwards, the wannabe British ski-jumper who made such an improbable — and improbably triumphant — showing at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics.

An opening statement is careful to note that this big-screen account of Edwards’ exploits is “inspired” by actual events, which allows scripters Simon Kelton and Sean Macaulay to play fast and loose with a few details. They’re careful to retain the essential broad strokes that brought Edwards to Calgary, and of course his performance at the Olympics is a matter of record (and can be viewed in any number of YouTube videos).

But various supporting characters have been conflated or invented outright, in the manner we’d expect from a crowd-pleasing, feel-good movie. That’s less of an issue in this particular case, as such liberties merely augment the myth-making that put Edwards in the history books. Somehow, it feels appropriate.

Besides which, when the result is this enjoyable, it’s hard to complain.

We meet young Eddie as the bespectacled only child of working-class Cheltenham parents Janette (Jo Hartley) and Terry (Keith Allen), the latter a construction plasterer by trade. Despite poor vision, worse knees — the boy is shackled into a leg brace — and an utter lack of coordination, Eddie lives and breathes a foolish notion of growing up to become an Olympian.

Fletcher brings us through Eddie’s childhood with a brief prologue that highlights the boy’s stubborn pluck, much to the delight of his doting mother, and the exasperation of his aggrieved father. Hartley and Allen are delightful: She’s the mum we’d all love to have, while Allen — all bluster and bluff — makes ample use of his busy background as a popular character actor.

And how can we not adore a child who believes that holding his breath underwater for not quite a minute will qualify for some obscure Olympic event?