Looking for Eric - dir. Ken Loach
Hurray! Yesterday afternoon, I finally got to see Looking for Eric.
The Eric of the title could refer to Eric Cantona, the former footballer who plays an imaginary version of himself, but is more relevant to Eric Bishop, a Manchester United obsessed postman but seeming Failure, played really well by Steve Evets.
At the start of the film, Eric (Bishop) crashes his car. After a short stay in hospital, he gets home where he finds his feckless stepson, Ryan, who gives such little respect to his stepfather, that we realise that he is one of life's losers. Things do not improve. Eric is a postman and he is soon discovered to be hoarding letters at his house. Luckily, the discovery is made by his best friends in the post office. Not only do they not shop him but commit to deliver the post themselves. The idea of friendship is very strong in this film.
Looking for Eric contains two narrative strands. The first concerns Ryan who has managed to get himself mixed up with the local psychopath and is hiding a gun for him. A gun that is then used in the shooting of a night clubber who insulted the said psychopath. The police storm the house but fail to find the gun. What will they do with it? Seemingly nothing because the psychopath has intimidated both Ryan and Eric into keeping it. But nothing is not an option...
The second narrative strand concerns the resurrection of Eric's relationship with his ex-wife, Lily, who he walked out on thirty or so years previously. Just after, that is, the birth of their son. Naturally, their second meeting is a tense one (the first, aborted, leads directly to the car crash). But when we learn why Eric walked out on her - because he suffered panic attacks over the commitment he had taken on - we get to understand his motivation better and perhaps, while not condoning what he did, sympathise a little with him.
The glue that binds both strands together is Eric Cantona. When Eric takes to smoking dope, Cantona appears as if in a vision to offer sage advice in both French and English. When Cantona appears, Looking for Eric ceases to be a story in the social realism genre and becomes a modern fairy tale. This is emphasised by the film's denouement when Eric and about thirty Manchester United supporting friends deal with the issue of the gun by taking the fight to the psychopath in a thoroughly entertaining and unrealistic fashion. Actually, it is believable. At the conclusion, however, Eric Cantona appears not just to Eric but to one of his friends. How does that happen? Only in a fairy tale could it do so.
Ken Loach's Manchester is a city that is divided between the working class daily lives of the principle characters and Old Trafford or the away coach on Saturdays. It is a place where your friends go the extra two miles for you and where aphorisms become guides to living. It is a place, simultaneously, of fear, violence, hope and triumph.
The acting performances are all great. Steve Evets leads the cast really well. Gerard Kearns as the witless Ryan is super. For a long while, his character is a real challenge to one's compassion. Perhaps in keeping with the film's sense of hope, perhaps, he comes good at the end, though, in a very excellent way. Stephanie Bishop as Lily is also very good. Her terrified reaction when armed police break into Eric's house is brilliant. I must also commend John Henshaw as Meatballs and Justin Moorhouse as Spleen, Eric's postal colleagues and fellow Manchester United fans. They brought a really needed layer of humour to the film.
And what of Eric Cantona? He does not have a great deal to do, other than act cool and say the right things. He does them well, though! The last time I saw Eric Cantona on the big screen was in Elizabeth. Then, his performance was wooden and hardly worth the effort. While I can't say that he is a very expressive actor, he certainly did inhabit his space well. His delivery of the line "I am not a man... I am Cantona." was worth the price of admission alone. And for the record, it is ironically meant.
Due to its football background, Looking for Eric might not be everyone's cup of tea, but no one should think that it is a football film. It isn't. Football, or more specifically, Eric Cantona, is the inspiration for the film, but while admitting the importance of Manchester United to the picture, one can say that it goes beyond the football pitch. Looking for Eric is a heart warming film. Very enjoyable indeed.
