Looking For Eric
by Matthew Rodgers
“ooh ahh Cantona, say ooh ahh Cantona!” emanated from the terraces of awe-struck stadia throughout the nineties. Undoubtedly the finest foreign import in the history of the English league, with a swagger, unrivalled finesse and a deserved arrogance that Cristiano Ronaldo won’t even come close to achieving.
At that same time Ken Loach was best known for the boy and kestrel brilliance of Kes (1969), and was just releasing his latest working class opus My Name is Joe (1998) as Cantona announced his shock retirement from the game in 1997 to concentrate of “acting and painting”.Now they have formed the strangest strike partnership of all with this heart-warming little fable of hope.
Eric (Steve Evets) is a football mad postman whose life has descended into misery, ignored by his unruly step-kids and dwelling on all of the “what ifs” that have passed him by, the story begins with the culmination of all these woes, and an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Then, as with all of his best performances on the pitch, Eric Cantona appears from nowhere, in an attempt to coach Eric into getting the best results out of his spiralling life.
In order for a film to be termed “feel good”, it has to make you feel bad, for redemptive purposes. Looking for Eric certainly does both; it is extremely funny, Cantona and his self deprecating reprisal of the infamous “seagulls follow the trawler speech”, and Eric and his postie chums sharing a ridiculous zen-like meditation session dictated from a Paul McKenna book, are particular highlights.
But this being a Ken Loach film, there are also plenty of struggles; Eric is a very flawed man and a lot of his life decisions make you wonder if the apparently hallucinogenic appearance of Cantona is more than a jovial Jiminy Cricket, and something a lot darker in terms of his mental health.
It’s this balance that keeps the film interesting, never sure whether Eric’s tale is headed towards a tragic ending; it’s also a bit of a problem. Loach has a deft touch when portraying humanity within social constraints, and the writing is often simplistically beautiful – “we held eachothers eyes all night” -, so when he throws in a completely mis-judged police raid, coupled with a ridiculously OTT finale, it removes something from the intimate story of a man struggling to live up to life.
The teamsheet of actors hit the back of the net every time, full of wonderfully understated turns. Evets elicits sympathy without making you pity him, and is a typical Loach everyman to root for. Cantona is more subdued that he ever was on the field, but no less effective as the angelic Red Devil.
It does drag on into some unwanted extra-time that stops it achieving the “J’adore Looking for Eric” rating, but never-the-less remains a definite “J’aime”.
