Looking For Eric

• Director: Ken Loach
• Writer: Paul Laverty
• Cast: Steve Evets, Eric Cantona, Stephanie Bishop, Gerard Kearns
• Theatrical Release Date: May 14, 2010
• Criticwire: B-
• On The Web IMDB Entry

Synopsis: This comic film from Palme d’Or winner Loach follows a depressed Mancunian postman, obsessed with football, whose life is descending in to crisis. That is, until he receives some life coaching from the famously philosophical football legend Eric Cantona (playing himself).

Round-up: "'Looking for Eric' belongs less to the tradition of hard-hitting British dramas that frequent Cannes and increasingly more along the lines of the sort of slight crowd-pleasing fare that does well in U.S. art-houses," notes Anthony Kaufman in his review of Loach's latest for indieWIRE. Kaufman also calls the film a "refreshing shift from the sometimes overt class-conscious sermonizing found in previous Loach outings." Indeed, most critics have found the film easy to like, with The Times' James Christopher saying that "Ken Loach couldn't have painted a more perfect, bitter-sweet picture for Cannes" and the Hollywood Reporter's Ray Bennett writing that "It looks set to be Loach's biggest mainstream hit." Though the movie is a crowd pleaser, Time Out's Dave Calhoun points out that "This being a Loach film, neither the comedy nor the fantasy comes at the expense of passionate realism." Finally, The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw offers somewhat more guarded praise, regretting that "the film takes a weird, and not entirely convincing lurch into darker territory" at one point but that overall it's "a lovably good-natured if erratic comedy."