Excellent, a Must See

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I went to the cinema on a bad day, a bad week actually. Ken Loach and Eric put a smile on my heart. Thank you guys. A beautiful film.

oooh aaaah Cantona.... OK - middle aged woman fantasy he maybe - but not for me except in the footballing sense! lol - as a Chelsea fan at the time of his greatness even I was totally enthralled by this man's footballing prowess. He was special. Even before the Special One... Then this film comes along - and wow - he can act - and the part he plays - well! WOW! Amazing - it's all you'd ever want in a best friend. It's even got romance (not too yucky - but maybe a bit too much for men who've had a similar experience like Eric the Postman and for whom there is no going back...) But, all in all a totally wonderful film. And, to end in a footballing vein, who is out there in now that is, as this man was? Absolutely no-one. More's the pity. (Cue seagulls...)

Postman Eric is pretty much at the end of his tether. His partner has not come back home despite her being released from prison over two months ago, leaving him looking after two teenage stepsons, neither of whom respect him or listen to him and appear to be heading down the wrong road in life. His own daughter Sam needs help with her own daughter and asks Eric to get in touch with her mother Lily, who Eric left as a young single mother. The pressures from all sides are clear to even his colleagues, who to their credit do attempt to help him. Rather than talk to himself, Eric confides in a poster of his idol, Eric Cantona only to find that the man himself appears in his room. With sage input from Cantona, Eric attempts to put his life in order while the external forces threaten to tear it apart.A strange film from Ken Loach this and one that doesn't ever really work as well as certain parts of it do or as well as the idea makes it sound like it should. As a film it is rather fragmented both in terms of tone and narrative and it is shame that the two could not have been brought together in a more effective manner. The first half of the film spends its time mostly focused very much on the mental state of Eric and, although some have said this part is dull I actually found it to be pretty engaging and clever. The importance of sport in the world of men (particularly working class men – sorry if that sounds snobby) should not be overlooked and I thought that the film had potential by using Cantona as a sounding board for Eric to work out his problems in a way that is made easier by virtue of his idol taking him mentally into that world where it is OK to let it all out, OK to cry, OK to be oneself – the world of the terraces as he describes them. This doesn't really happen though although it is close enough to that to keep it interesting and the passion of the football discussions does add a nice contrast to the reality of Eric's life.In the second half of the film a discovery starts a specific dramatic thread and it makes for a sudden change in the tone of the film – one that is most noticeable because the script becomes the F word for long sections. This rather gritty and violent dose of reality clashes with the fantasy of the first half and, while they are still linked I didn't think that they were linked well enough in terms of the tone and feel of the film. It is a shame because the second half does work and it does lead to a rather uplifting conclusion but even this doesn't quite fit into the thread that it concludes. I'm not describing it very well but the overall impression I'm trying to land is that the film has plenty of good ideas and isn't "bad" so much as it just has a lot of potential that goes unrealised.Cantona may be the name that draws the eye but Evets does very well in the lead role. He makes a very convincing character with all of his performance and if the material had been there with him, his performance would have been a big part of the film being consistent – as it is he cannot do it alone. Cantona is an enigmatic presence and, although hard to understand sometimes, this is what he brings to the film and he works very well with Evets as the solid, thoughtful sounding board of reason – again the material just doesn't seem to let their scenes have the meaning and impact that they could have done. The supporting cast are understandably outside of the main scenes but there are still good performances from Bishop, Kearns, Gumbs, Hudson as well as older hands like Henshaw and a few others.Overall Looking for Eric is an engaging but frustrating experience. It is engaging because of the potential inherent in the ideas and the narrative, however it is also frustrating because not all that potential is realised and the delivery seems disjointed and rather uneven in terms of tone and substance. Interesting enough and good enough to take a look but it is not the film it deserved to be and is not one of Loach's or Laverty's better films.

Loach's Looking for Eric combines some of the best work he's previously done in regards to a realistic, low-level set aesthetic combined with some universal themes of contemporary middle aged men in crisis, all the while filtered through the light comedy and crime drama genres. It's to the film's great credit that it doesn't linger too often on one of the items Loach explored here, while this project in the hands of a lesser director may well have come across as more misguided than it actually does here. As a journey of self-discovery; a horrifying urban crime tale and a study of mental illness, the film covers enough ground on most levels without ever feeling like it caters for any of the above.The film plunges the viewer head first into the world of a certain Eric Bishop (Evets); who's a single and ageing postman living in Manchester with son Jess (Gumbs) and stepson Ryan (Kearns), in a small house that results in messy and cramped living conditions. The film begins and concludes with two very different, but somewhat equally frightening, sequences with the first thing we're presented with being a suicide attempt that sees Eric driving the wrong way around a roundabout. The film finishes off its narrative with a sequence that resembles what a number of 2004 film Dead Man's Shoes' scenes might've looked like had it been co-made by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.But Bishop isn't the only Eric of the film, indeed footballer Eric Cantona makes a number of brief appearances as himself in both found footage format, when the film displays a number instances in which he is playing football, as well as in hallucinatory form when postman Eric sees him and talks to him. In decoding the title of the film, we establish the sort of arc its lead will go on. Whatever initial 'looking' in regards to Eric anybody does is postman Eric's searching for some kind of way to make sense of everything; this is then followed by a 'looking' for himself, a searching of one's self and how one can overcome the obstacles such as marital issues; maintaining healthy relationships with one's friends and family members as well as an alarming situation which arises to do with a firearm.Bishop escapes to his own space, his bedroom, when things get tougher than they ought to be when at home with his sons and their own friends whom clutter things up even more. Further still, he uses Cantona, and memories of Cantona as a footballer, to escape to a happier time and place. He hasn't been to a match at his beloved Manchester United for many years, and can only gaze on in a forlorn state at his sons as they clamber into a black jeep with their own contacts, match bound. Eric's despair; suicidal ideation and what we have to perceive as his schizophrenia, are all handled with the greatest of respects. When Cantona first appears and begins to communicate with Eric, he takes him through the process of confronting both the past and his flaws in a very realistic and down to Earth manner; asking him to explore what is inside of Eric's bedroom trunk, which mostly houses memorabilia from Eric's marriage to now estranged child-hood sweetheart named Lily. This premise of forthrightly confronting one's fears is relatively simplistic but works well. From here, the film beautifully spaces the interactions between either Eric, and allows the character of Bishop to naturally progress.In addition to the principal study running throughout, Loach retreads some old ground that recalls the sorts of work he did in both 1991's Riff Raff and 2001's The Navigators; this when he enters a comfort zone which provides some fascinating, dialogue driven cinema in some everyday locations as those of a working class sit around and just talk in that ultra-realistic manner Loach seems to execute with consummate ease, every time making for riveting viewing and desperately straddling that fine line between documentary and fiction. You know the instances I mean; those times when it's as if the actors are still talking on the set but the cameras have been accidentally left running. But I think Loach identifies the severity and sensitive nature of his primary subject matter, thus he limits these sorts of scenes to only one or two occasions. The comedy is additionally blended in well, with no aim to exploit the respective situations; with instances such as Eric accidentally spraying paint onto his work clothes and his stepson encountering him in the kitchen shouting "No!", in French, after Cantona told him to.Looking for Eric is a tasteful observation of a man in crisis, someone whom you think is able to enjoy what life has to throw at him, but finds it difficult to channel it towards the surface and therefore express it. The notion of hallucinating a figure to help you through times of distress is something that has been explored before, but Loach brings something different to it; something I wouldn't describe as 'lighthearted', more-so 'delicate', or just down to Earth. Refreshingly, the sensation that a person is seeing and actually communicating with something that's not there isn't overplayed or put across as this amazing; fantastic event that everyone's attention should be drawn to. Loach observes the USP, but does not make it the centrepiece of his film; rather, he allows it to play out around a story of identifying meaningful friendships and rectifying marital mistakes. Well handled; well executed and not over-egged nor patronising, Looking for Eric buries the proverbial volley with aplomb.