David O'ConnellLooking for Eric
October 6th 2009 03:54
Though director Ken Loach relents somewhat in his stance on having social realism grace every frame of his forlorn but heartfelt films, Looking for Eric (2009) still manages to darken the horizon with enough bleak subject matter for a year’s worth of stamp-pressed Hollywood imitations.
Shattering the artificiality of cinema has long been this divisive director’s mandate for authenticating the human experience. In his latest, a battler’s life in Manchester is finally given much needed perspective from an unlikely source; it’s a tale of two Erics - with one summoned from the yearnings of the other like a wizened phantom guide. Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) isn't getting much assistance from the ball-and-chain presence of a pair of ungrateful stepsons he’s been inexplicably lumbered with from a second marriage who’ve swamped his home with the trappings of aimless teenage lives.
A postman entrenched in his lowly post, Eric is driven to the edge of sanity by contact with the love of his life, first wife Lily (Stephanie Bishop). He abandoned her after getting her pregnant in his misguided youth and though the scars of that inglorious split still cut deep, his grown daughter, who seems free of any resentment, has become the saving grace of his faltering life.
Eric’s mates from the post office, also his drinking companions, offer solace and a potty excursion into self-help territory that later conjures the championed figure of notorious Manchester United great Eric Cantona into Bishop’s drug-addled consciousness. Offering advisory words and an outlet for every conceivable neuroses preventing Eric from moving beyond the impasse of his inert existence, Cantona proves as tangible and valuable as anything else in Eric’s life.
Loach’s film dishes out requisite doses of grim reflections of a life trapped in limbo but its uproarious humour is the glue that holds it together. Pushing out the running time is a subplot involving stepson Ryan (Gerard Kearns) and his trouble with a local hood which eventually encompasses the whole family. But ultimately there’s a surprising amount of belief in the restoration of the human spirit in Paul Laverty’s screenplay, ensuring the rough edges of these characters are given crowd-pleasing dimensions.
Cantona will take further coaching as an actor but the promise first seriously glimpsed in Thierry Binisti’s amusingly dark The Over-Eater (2003) and a residual presence from his sporting deeds, gives his performance some semblance of authority. He’s only too willing to take jabs at his stained, egotistical reputation too, self-parody very much part of the fun of his fleeting manifestations. Eric’s blatant hero worship of the man translates into a sense of contextual consistency too, the advice dispensed providing momentum for his, at first, reluctant re-evaluation of a past long thought buried.
Evets is simply magnificent as the tortured soul trying to wrestle back his dignity, not a gesture or word feeling forced. As hilarious as the show-stopping finale is, it seems highly improbable but nothing can detract from this film's winning qualities. The rest of the cast is flawless, with Bishop as the dignified Lily giving especially strong support.
Looking for Eric never strays into the realm of sentimentality exactly; this is a Ken Loach film after all. But there’s a restrained despair in this portrayal, a positivity usually occluded from the man’s films; maybe even evidence enough that he’s beginning to soften up in his old age.
Shattering the artificiality of cinema has long been this divisive director’s mandate for authenticating the human experience. In his latest, a battler’s life in Manchester is finally given much needed perspective from an unlikely source; it’s a tale of two Erics - with one summoned from the yearnings of the other like a wizened phantom guide. Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) isn't getting much assistance from the ball-and-chain presence of a pair of ungrateful stepsons he’s been inexplicably lumbered with from a second marriage who’ve swamped his home with the trappings of aimless teenage lives.
A postman entrenched in his lowly post, Eric is driven to the edge of sanity by contact with the love of his life, first wife Lily (Stephanie Bishop). He abandoned her after getting her pregnant in his misguided youth and though the scars of that inglorious split still cut deep, his grown daughter, who seems free of any resentment, has become the saving grace of his faltering life.
Eric (Steve Evets) and Eric Cantona
Eric’s mates from the post office, also his drinking companions, offer solace and a potty excursion into self-help territory that later conjures the championed figure of notorious Manchester United great Eric Cantona into Bishop’s drug-addled consciousness. Offering advisory words and an outlet for every conceivable neuroses preventing Eric from moving beyond the impasse of his inert existence, Cantona proves as tangible and valuable as anything else in Eric’s life.
Loach’s film dishes out requisite doses of grim reflections of a life trapped in limbo but its uproarious humour is the glue that holds it together. Pushing out the running time is a subplot involving stepson Ryan (Gerard Kearns) and his trouble with a local hood which eventually encompasses the whole family. But ultimately there’s a surprising amount of belief in the restoration of the human spirit in Paul Laverty’s screenplay, ensuring the rough edges of these characters are given crowd-pleasing dimensions.
Eric tries to reconnect with Lily (Stephanie Bishop)
Cantona will take further coaching as an actor but the promise first seriously glimpsed in Thierry Binisti’s amusingly dark The Over-Eater (2003) and a residual presence from his sporting deeds, gives his performance some semblance of authority. He’s only too willing to take jabs at his stained, egotistical reputation too, self-parody very much part of the fun of his fleeting manifestations. Eric’s blatant hero worship of the man translates into a sense of contextual consistency too, the advice dispensed providing momentum for his, at first, reluctant re-evaluation of a past long thought buried.
Evets is simply magnificent as the tortured soul trying to wrestle back his dignity, not a gesture or word feeling forced. As hilarious as the show-stopping finale is, it seems highly improbable but nothing can detract from this film's winning qualities. The rest of the cast is flawless, with Bishop as the dignified Lily giving especially strong support.
Looking for Eric never strays into the realm of sentimentality exactly; this is a Ken Loach film after all. But there’s a restrained despair in this portrayal, a positivity usually occluded from the man’s films; maybe even evidence enough that he’s beginning to soften up in his old age.
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Comment by Wilson Pon
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Since this film is one of the competed films in the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, I assumed it would be a very quality film for sure.
Comment by David O'Connell
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