Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The pass, 12 Jun 2009
Looking for Eric is probably Manchester's darkest cultural product since Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures', although it is balanced by a raucous sense of humour. This film is, in places, crying tears of laughter down your shirt kind of funny, and in other places, heavy as an anvil.
Eric is a postman. Clinically depressed and fixated on the breakup of his last but one marriage, he is involved in a minor road traffic accident, his teenage stepsons don't show him much respect. It's bleak. His colleagues try and make him laugh to cheer him up, but (quoting Joy Division) he's "waiting for a guide to come and take him by the hand".
Eric sneaks into his son's room and borrows his tin of smoking materials. He goes into the living room and lights up a joint. He talks to his Cantona poster. Then the real Cantona appears in the room and talks to him. Will Cantona's Gallic aphorisms provide the guidance Eric needs to get back on track, beset as he is by low self-esteem, depression and out-of-control teenagers making his life a misery?
Cast - perfect. Steve Evets (Eric) turns in an Oscar-worthy performance, you forget that this is an actor and not a postman. Stephanie Bishop (Lily, the ex- ex- wife) again, brilliant. Eric Cantona (lui-même) - excellent, subtle stuff here: he just appears and talks in French then translates it for the other Eric, sometimes with (probably deliberately) incomprehensible results - humour and gravitas in one. Nul points for the trumpet though.
Visuals - the visual language of the film is exemplary. For once, this is a Loach film that doesn't have a documentary vibe. It's unashamedly cinematic, albeit in a magnetically watchable arthouse kind of a way. It's also one of few recent British made films that doesn't have an off-putting Britfilm look about it.
Script - for my money this is screenwriter Paul Laverty's best effort since Bread And Roses [DVD] [2000] The dialogue is natural, the story is improbable (in a good way), the pace (slowish) works fine and there isn't a dull moment over the entire 116 minutes of the film.
Not much more to say, really. Probably Loach's best film since Kes [DVD] [1969] Just stunning.
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
suprised!, 8 Jul 2009
I went to see this film knowing only the barest details of what it was about. ie a depressed postman and an appearence by eric cantona.
i have started to watch a lot more British movies , this was started by This is england . These films have more depth to their characters,rely less on special effects and glamorous superstar actors than their Hollywood counterparts.They are set in places we all know and characters everybody will have met at some point in their lifes. The sorylines are about real people and real places.
I was suprised at how much I enjoyed Looking for Eric ,it was at times extremely funny, extremely depressing. one minute you are laughing out loud, the next wanting to cry.
There is a lot of swearing in the film however the quality of the acting and the storyline ensures that you soon become oblivous to this.
Of all the films I have seen this year the best so far have been The Damned United,Awaydays and now looking for eric!
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11 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Felt good, 15 Jun 2009
Postman and football fanatic Eric Bishop's on a downer, trying to come to terms with two failed marriages while taking care of his less than law-abiding children from the second. He's a grandfather, and babysitting forces him back to face his first ex-wife who he is still in love with - even though it was he who left her originally. He's depressed and stressed out, drinks too much - and then he smokes a joint which leads him to have visions of another Eric: the iconic French footballer Eric 'King' Cantona who through some amusing philosophising shows the other Eric how he could live a better life.
This was a most enjoyable film, one that deserves the cachet of 'feel-good movie' much more suitably than the still excellent Slumdog Millionaire, which had undertones of darkness that - in my view - preclude it from such stereotypes. I must admit to being a Cantona fan from his heady days in the 1990s and while there may be question marks as to his technical skills as an actor, what he does bring to the screen is just what he brought to the football pitch: charisma in abundance. He most definitely has that magic draw that many thespians would die for, and there can be little doubt that a lot of people seeing this film will be doing so just so they can see 'Le Roi' who in the previous decade (for those who may not know, or care) was one of the leading personalities on Britain's football pitches in part due to his natural gifts but equally due to his peerless ego. The thing is, nearly everyone liked him, which is more than could be said of Cristiano Ronaldo today. And for those who do remember Cantona from back then, he was just as much a theatrical performer in a dramatic sense as he is today on the big screen.
The script is funny, engaging and warm-hearted, and is helped in no small part by the lesser known of the two Erics, Steve Evets, who possesses that uncanny skill of appearing in this film to be exactly who he is; that ability to act naturally but not act, as it were. I found myself easily buying into his fantasy world, which is not a style that director Ken Loach is normally noted for - his films are usually much more gritty, realistic and down-to-earth - and it was important to be convinced by Evets' performance and character in order that the ending should not appear farcical. On the contrary, this is a film that works completely as feel-good entertainment because of (rather than in spite of) its romantic flights of fancy. Cantona's self-deprecating humour sealed it for me, he will always be missed from his original stage but I'm very glad he's back on his new one because he has that special appeal about him that may not be down to out-and-out acting talent but still makes him magnetic to watch and to catch every word.
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