Looking For Eric - Review

The idea of a film about Eric Cantona's greatness as a footballer is no brainer for me. It's going to be hugely entertaining and also very nostalgic. And yet Ken Loach's Looking For Eric becomes less about the great man himself and more about what he represented as not only a footballer but a person. The film is also amazing in that the actual story, away from Eric Cantona's role, stands up and Loach has developed characters which pull you in, allow you to grow to love them before finding yourself worrying about them as they find themselves in a deadly serious predicament, one which seemingly has no solution. The films then delivers a heart warming, hilarious and downright imaginative conclusion.

The story focues on Eric Bishop, lifelong Manchester United fan, and postman, who is going through something of a crisis. He lives with his two disrepectful stepsons, the mother of whom is nowhere to be seen, and he has been asked by his daughter to meet up with his first love, and ex wife Lily. After a breakdown of sorts Eric starts seeing Eric, Cantona. As Cantona philosphises and talks about life, football and everything, he becomes a makeshift guardian angel to the poor, unhappy Eric.

Eventually the characters in Eric's life take over and after his son becomes embroiled with a gangster things descend into a mire it seems there is no escape from. The film offers some hilariously comedic moments, not least a scene where Eric's post office buddies try to cheer him up and pull him out of his depression by working through some exercises in a self help book together. The camaraderie and male insecurity providing one of the strongest scenes in the movie. But this film also has an incredible amount of heart, most of it coming from Steve Evets as Eric. He has a face which conveys years of unhappy misery, he's a man who, over the years has gradually been ground down, who carries his regrets in every word he speaks, and his only outlet is the club he loves. Evets carries the film and gives it both its heart and the humour.

By the films slightly far fetched but incredibly cathartic ending Evets has changed his life around, with the help of his family, friends and the man they call Cantona.

An seemingly unlikely partnership in Loach and Cantona turns out to be a beautiful, heartwarming and brilliant piece of cinema. Loach uses Cantona sparingly but when he is needed, and Cantona relishes the opportunity to play himself, but its the other Eric, Evets who steals the show, sitting comfortably alongside Loach's other unlikely heros of the past.