Highly Overrated But Still Good

The first must-see film of the year.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

A completely unbelievable plot and I'm not referring to the phantom character but to the main characters who's lives are being portrayed. The men are of below average intelligence, obnoxious and foul-mouthed. The women are attractive, charming and intelligent. I can't imagine anyone enjoying this rubbish except maybe for teenage boys who find thuggish behavior exciting. One scene involves minor acts of violence accompanied by music appropriate for a slapstick film.Swearing in films doesn't normally bother me but the use of the "F" word is way over the top, used often and repeatedly. I know some people actually talk like this but if, like me, you would rather avoid these people, then avoid this film.As for Eric Cantona, the reason I watched this, his performance is acceptable (no swearing or violence). The film also contains some clips of him in action on the pitch and off.

Let me start off by saying: I'm not a Cantona fan nor a Manchester devil. My interest is placed solely on the artistic relevance of this simplistic, almost ascetic, piece of filmmaking. By far the the most poignant film about football, as well as possibly the best movie in the 2009 Cannes selection.Eric (played by TV series regular Steve Evets), a down-trodden shell of his former self, a crazed football fan, who has not seen a game live in over 10 years, upbringing two troublesome step-sons from his previous marriages, while quietly reliving his one true love - the woman he abandoned with his baby at the age of 21. Despite huge plans as a youth he ends up a simple post-man, unable to find joy in his life and essentially contemplating suicide. All this changes following a weird spiritual séance with his mates and smoking a spliff stolen from his son's stash. In the ensuing high Eric suddenly realises that opposite him Eric Cantona appears, whose presence is noted with a highly suitable exclamation: "Jesus Christ!". The imaginary friend builds a mentor-like relationship with the distraught and depressed Eric, which causes simple, but revelatory, changes to his life.An endearing little movie, with humour and a sense of sincerity so profound, that it envelopes you emotionally. Escaping from big stories about remarkable people Ken Loach focuses on a lower class person with unfulfilled dreams and aspirations, leading to a maybe clichéd, but ultimately essential, moral that people are not better or worse because of what they achieved or who they are, but how they live their life in relation to others. Cantona functions here are a Christ-figure with simple truths, that gives his namesake the courage and audacity to change things in his life and rediscover a sense of purpose / meaning. And does this with no stupendous, but ultimately pretentious, Amelia-type epiphanies, but thanks to very down-to-earth realisations. As Eric the post-man reaches closure and then catharsis an overwhelming feeling of happiness engulfs even the viewers, delivering possibly one of the most feel good movies in the last few years.The only fault I see is the slightly unsatisfying "Operation Cantona", which actually could have been a bit more 'out there' for good measure.Hat's off to Ken Loach for a brilliant little gem done with the most basic filmmaking tools out there.

I am honestly not a big fan of director Ken Loach's.I respect his intention of examining the dark side from modern society as well as the injustices around the world.His strategy is translating the cruel reality with honesty which is not completely lacking of beauty and an elegant minimalistic style; but at the same time, I find his movies to be a bit hollow and occasionally dull and depressing.Nevertheless, I decided to watch Looking for Eric because I felt the curiosity of watching a comedy from this filmmaker, who is famous for his sordid and melancholic movies.Would it be authentically funny, or a failed experiment due to Loach's austere sensibility? To my surprise, Looking for Eric ended up being a very interesting combination of humor, social commentary, drama...and sports metaphors.I did not expect to find a sport subtext in Looking for Eric; if I had known that, I would have read something about the football player Eric Cantona before watching it, in order to understand his relevance better.The film establishes that he was a great footballer from the famous team Manchester United, but I did not know if his philosophical commentaries in the movie were part of the humor or if that was part of his real personality (I mean, he could be a troglodyte in real life, even though a scene during the final credits confirms his phlegmatic attitude).But well, even without knowing that, I enjoyed the conversations between him and the main character, even though some of them feel as simple self-help homilies we have seen in every kind of inspiring stories.However, that does not make the advices less valid; I would have simply wanted some exchanges to be more ingenious.For the rest, I liked this movie pretty much: the screenplay is well structured and very interesting; and its humor is not based on comic routines or the nonsense we usually see in TV, but on the picturesque characteristics from the characters.The actors from Looking for Eric are unknown, and following Loach's tradition in his selection of the cast, their cultural and social frame is similar to the one of the characters they interpret.Loach is famous for filming the scenes in a linear sequence, keeping secrets about the screenplay in order to surprise the actors and get unusually realistic and honest reactions out of them.The result in Looking for Eric is a perfect illusion that we are witnessing real lives from normal people, with problems of a variable importance, but which after all, affect them as much as they could affect to us.In conclusion, despite not being perfect, I found Looking for Eric to be a very solid film, simultaneously light and deep, whose laughs are more satisfactory because of the emotional resonance they evoke as well as for their contrast with the bitter situations the characters live (not everything are laughs in this movie; there also are some moments which are pretty dramatic).So, I think this film is worthy of a recommendation, at the same time it made me get more interested in Loach's future work.

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.