Cannes. "Looking for Eric"

By David Hudson on 05/18/2009

[Updated through 5/21]

"Seeing top-whack footballers at the Cannes film festival is becoming a bit of a tradition," notes the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw. "Last year it was Diego Maradona, showing up for Emir Kusturica's macho movie tribute, 'Maradona By Kusturica.' The year before it was Zinédine Zidane,' the subject of Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno's 'Zidane: A 21st-Century Portrait.' (Zidane didn't turn up in person, but contributed a winning video intro for the premiere.) Now it is the turn of Eric Cantona, the gnomic philosopher-king of 90s Man U, and now hero of Ken Loach's boisterous new picture; scripted by Paul Laverty, it is a lovably good-natured if erratic comedy about a depressed middle-aged postman and football fan called Eric, played by Steve Evets."

"Theirs is the story of Eric Bishop, a Manchester postman whose life is fraying at the edges," writes Dave Calhoun in Time Out London: "when Eric begins addressing a poster in his bedroom of his footballing hero, little does he know that he'll turn round and find Cantona talking back to him. Within minutes they're sharing a spliff. From there unfolds a tender comedy about modern male alienation and disappointment that sprinkles a little fantasy - and not a few laughs - into the harsh real world that Loach has been exploring over the past five decades of filmmaking."

"No prior knowledge of either English soccer or one of its greatest stars of the 90s, French-born Eric Cantona, is necessary to go 'Looking for Eric' [site]" Derek Elley assures us in Variety, where he finds the film to be "a curious hybrid: Three movies - boilerplate, socially aware Loach; personal fantasy; romantic comedy - wrap around a central core of a hopeless soccer fanatic who's given a second chance to sort out his life."

Even the ever socially aware Anthony Kaufman, writing for indieWIRE, finds this one to be "a refreshing shift from the sometimes overt class-conscious sermonizing found in previous Loach outings; the only scenes that come close to such politics are a debate about a corporate-sponsored soccer team that's sold out to the highest bidder - still handled humorously - and the fact that poor Bishop is too poor to get tickets to his beloved soccer matches, the one place, he says, where you could 'forget all the shit in your life for just a few hours.' It's a defter handling of social issues than we've seen from Loach in a long time."

Writing for Screen, Fionnuala Halligan agrees that "Loach crams a few films into this unique title and manages to pull them into one crowd-pleaser by the end."

"The term 'crowd-pleaser' is not often attached to the work of Ken Loach, the British Palme d'Or-winning director of films of social realism," notes Ray Bennett in the Hollywood Reporter, "but his latest Festival de Cannes Competition entry, 'Looking for Eric,' is exactly that. At the press screening, there was laughter throughout, frequent clapping and sustained applause at the end."

"[T]he pleasure of watching a bearded Cantona playing life coach to the astonished and grateful Bishop is rigged - deliberately and brilliantly - with uncertainty," writes James Christopher in the London Times, where Ben Hoyle reports on the press conference (and Cannes has more). "The second half of the film is much broader and far less dark. There's an unmistakable dash of Woody Allen's 'Play It Again, Sam' about Paul Laverty's script.... The sweet and healing chemistry between Steve Evets's confused hero and Cantona taps a vintage Loach theme about the resilience and essential decency of human nature.

"Cantona, playing himself for the first time, never overcooks his part, though Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs fans may not be entirely convinced of either his modesty or wisdom," writes Derek Malcolm in the Evening Standard. And as for Loach: "This is the nearest he will ever get to a feelgood movie, and may well become one of his most successful."

Paul Kendall talks with Cantona for the Telegraph.

Online listening tip. The Observer's Jason Solomons chats up Loach.

Earlier: Robert Chalmers's dual profile of Loach and Cantona for the Independent.

Updates: "'Looking for Eric' is almost politics-free yet not completely apolitical," writes the Boston Globe's Wesley Morris. "The postal workers stage a surprising coup late in the film that in another Loach movie would have been against management, government, or some other institution. Here they rise up for comedy. Loach has devoted his career to the bluest collars, revolutionaries, the self-defense of the oppressed and exploited. It's funny that his being a kind of populist has never resulted in his being remotely popular. But judging from the claps, cheers, and chants people carried with them up the aisles and into the lobby after this morning's screening, that just changed."

"A few swipes at Rupert Murdoch for helping to inflate ticket prices is about as incendiary as it gets," writes the Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandhu. "A last-minute entry into revenge-thriller territory threatens to tip the film into melodrama. Overall, this is endearing, crowd-pleasing fare."

Cannes posts audio from the press conference.

The Hollywood Reporter interviews Loach.

Updates, 5/19: "Funny and sharply observed, it nonetheless has a sentimentality and contrivance about it that stops it short of its director's best work," writes Geoffrey Macnab in the Independent. "Even so, 'Looking for Eric' is an easy film to warm to. The Cantona conceit could have turned to whimsy - at times, it's as if Clarence the Angel from 'It's A Wonderful Life' has stumbled into Loach's universe, but Cantona plays his role with such conviction that you never question why he is sitting on Eric's bed or jogging alongside him by the canal. Moreover, 'Looking for Eric' boasts the most rousing finale of any Loach film."

Fabien Lemercier talks with Loach for Cineuropa.

Updates, 5/19: "Footballers with a religious zeal for UK powerhouse Manchester United will revel in Loach's kitchen-sink realism and cornball sense of humor," writes Stephen Garrett for Time Out New York. "But most others will probably have to stand on the sidelines and nod with benevolent goodwill. It's an undeniable crowd-pleaser, and the reception from Continental viewers was absolute joy. How will it travel across the Atlantic? About as well as David Beckham."

"After sweating blood with such films as 'Land and Freedom,' 'My Name Is Joe' and 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley,'" writes Mike D'Angelo at the AV Club, "Loach has earned the right to make a cute, harmless crowdpleaser, but it's destined to be a career footnote at best."

Update, 5/20: As Anne Thompson reports, IFC Films has picked up both "Eric" and "Antichrist."

Update, 5/21: "In the film's subtlest, smartest and best scene, Eric quizzes Cantona on the moment from his career he remembers most," writes James Rocchi for MSN, "and as Eric names amazing goal after amazing goal, Cantona shakes his head 'no' for each. 'It was a pass,' Cantona explains. And Eric glimpses how you can do great things for, and with, others and have those be your finest moments, and then finally reaches out to the people around him. I am not a sentimentalist, but I'm also not a communist robot, and at that moment - shot and performed with down-to-earth sincerity despite the fantasy in the premise, full of warm laughter despite the heartfelt message - dear reader, I wept."

Coverage of the coverage: Cannes 2009.

[Photo: "Looking for Eric," Sixteen Films, 2009]

Tags: British Cinema, Cannes 2009, Eric Cantona, Ken Loach, Looking for Eric, Paul Laverty, Steve Evets