Looking for Eric (2009)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Best movie ever!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is definitely one of my favorite movies EVER!It really rocked my world. As a fan of Cantona, I had to watch this movie. And, damn, he is impressive. And the movie for itself is amazing.The history behind the main character, Eric Bishop, is the history behind all of us. He is lost, his family is problematic, he can't deal with his beloved and his daughter...he is falling apart, and his only chance is look to the past, remember the good days, when Manchester was unbeatable, the Old Trafford was his real dream theater and Cantona was the best. Cantona, his biggest idol, is his only chance, and Cantona, like when acted just in the field, don't disappoint and changed Bishop's life. It's a history between a normal human being confidant with his idol, who shows how human all the idols out there are. It's a simple movie, about life, love, death, about men.It's very charismatic, with a lot of drama and a little bit of humour. Don't waste more time and go watch it, you will not regret.

An entertaining if barely credible parable about the power of family and friends with a touch of fantasy as postman Eric Bishop, inspired by France and Manchester United football hero Eric Cantona, gets his and his dysfunctional family's lives on track in the face of seeming adversity.Eric has two out of control live-in step-sons, the eldest of which has fallen in with local gangster Zac, a failed marriage to childhood sweetheart Lily and generally endures life in circumstances not much above squalor. About the only things he has going for him are his postman mates at work and their shared love of Manchester United, for whom, to the uninitiated, Cantona was the talismanic genius behind their rise to success in the late 90's. At his lowest ebb, Eric the King steps into Eric the Loser's life, like a human version of Harvey the Rabbit, dispensing the Frenchman's famous cryptic philosophy to encourage the other Eric to sort his life out.For Me though, this was a film of two halves, with the first half, where Eric's various family predicaments loom large, with the undercurrent of his nascent wish to rekindle his relationship with Lily percolating along nicely in the background. However in the second half, the film descends a bit into latter-day Ealing Comedy as a few coach loads of his mates, suitably masked up in Cantona false-faces accompany him on a mission to sort out the bad guy, resolving his son's problems and clearing the way with Lily at a stroke.For me the juxtaposition jars a little too much and in the end I felt somewhat manipulated by the director. That said there are some good performances, especially Steve Evers as the heavy laden hero, John Henshaw (now ironically getting work advertising the Royal Mail's service on UK TV) as senior postman "Meatballs" and Stephanie Bishop as the waiting-to-be-wooed Lily. The great man himself, "Ooh -Aah"Cantona acquits himself well, naturally playing up his individualism and mystique.I somehow didn't foresee this film ending up as a feel-good almost family entertainment during the early stages and think the journey didn't lead necessarily to the natural destination, but it was still a pleasant, diverting modern-day entertainment, worth a watch.

From director Ken Loach (Kes, Sweet Sixteen) I had heard that this film had a lot of interest surrounding it, and it sounded like something I would enjoy, so of course I watched it. Basically Manchester middle-aged postal sorting office worker Eric Bishop (Summer's Steve Evets) is going through a bad patch, mainly because of ex-wife Lily (Stephanie Bishop) coming back. To comfort himself in most circumstances he seeks advice from the one man he aspires to, and is almost hallucinogenic visions of, footballer Eric Cantona. As time goes by his relationship with Lily, who by the way left him to have their baby, improves, and he is also getting closer to teenage daughter Sam (Coronation Street's Lucy-Jo Hudson) and stepsons, including Ryan (Gerard Kearns). After being humiliated by some local gangsters with the help of a Rottweiler, and having the video put on YouTube, Eric finds out that Ryan has agreed to hide a gun in the house under the floorboards. Eric obviously turns to his imaginary friend Canona for some advice of what to do to make everything settle, and the idea of going up against the gangsters with the help of his post office friends is best. So Eric gets his friends and many Manchester United fans to help in "Operation Cantona", where they all wear the heads, or masks of the famous Eric, and they go to humiliate the gangsters. In the end, the gangsters get their comeuppance, Eric watches his daughter graduate, the whole family have worked things out, and the imaginary friend stays with his pal. Also starring John Henshaw as Meatballs, Stefan Gumbs as Jess and Justin Moorhouse as Spleen. Evets is fantastic as the nearly lonely ordinary Joe on the brink of a breakdown, and Cantona, who you also see the fantastic goals from, is brilliant as his knowledgeable invisible friend, it is a likable comedy drama. Very good!

The last Ken Loach film I saw was "The Wind that Shakes the Barley" which was a disappointingly simplistic historical epic. He's best when he drops the partisan politics and focuses on the lives of ordinary, flawed people trying to live their lives in harsh working class environments, and he's back to that here, in this tale of a Manchester postman whose life and family are in bad disrepair. The Loach film "Looking for Eric" reminded me most of is "Raining Stones": both seem comparatively light for quite a while, gritty and realistic (and wonderfully foul-mouthed) but also very funny, almost in a "Full Monty" mode. And then a huge shock that we should have been expecting suddenly raises the stakes and our emotional involvement. "Eric" differs from "Stones" in finding a more upbeat finale, by way of a climactic confrontation that must be seen to be believed. Throughout, the football fan camaraderie provides Loach with an infectious and fun way to make his point about friendship and community. Best of all is the rapport between the two Erics, protagonist Eric Bishop and real life Man U. footballer Eric Carmona, who appears as himself. His role in the plot is much the same as Humphrey Bogart's in Woody Allen's "Play It Again, Sam", but the context here raises the gimmick to something far more urgent and finally moving. Highly recommended.