Touches You

Good concept, poorly executed.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

This is definitely one of my favorite movies EVER!It really rocked my world. As a fan of Cantona, I had to watch this movie. And, damn, he is impressive. And the movie for itself is amazing.The history behind the main character, Eric Bishop, is the history behind all of us. He is lost, his family is problematic, he can't deal with his beloved and his daughter...he is falling apart, and his only chance is look to the past, remember the good days, when Manchester was unbeatable, the Old Trafford was his real dream theater and Cantona was the best. Cantona, his biggest idol, is his only chance, and Cantona, like when acted just in the field, don't disappoint and changed Bishop's life. It's a history between a normal human being confidant with his idol, who shows how human all the idols out there are. It's a simple movie, about life, love, death, about men.It's very charismatic, with a lot of drama and a little bit of humour. Don't waste more time and go watch it, you will not regret.

In 'Looking for Eric' Loach takes a look at the complicated life of a down on his luck unhappy postman, Eric Bishop. He desperately struggles to cope with his dysfunctional home, ignorant kids and a sad breakup but all seems hopeless until he finds a way in the form of former football player Eric Cantona. Loach does a wonderful job by infusing humour, philosophy and football into the story.The presentation itself is very raw and suitably toned down. The sets and setting look authentic. The actors look like the common people one would see in bars. The intense scenes are very effective as the stark portrayal of Eric's struggle and despair is raw to the core. The humour comes as a welcome comic relief as it balances well. I really enjoyed the sequences with the two Erics. This is where Eric Bishop finds solace, peace and answers and his friendship with his imaginary friend is easy to relate to.Another theme that Loach beautifully presents in 'Looking for Eric' is the importance and love for football. Why fans excitedly watch a match and cheer or yell at the team they support, what football means to them, and the significant effect it has on the lives of fans are all wonderfully explored here.Steve Evets is great as Eric Bishop. His nuanced portrayal stands out beautifully. Eric Cantona perhaps delivers one of the most sincere performances I have ever seen from a sports player turned actor. Even though some may argue that he's just playing himself, I'd say that he's playing Eric Cantona from Eric Bishop's point of view, not his own. I also liked how Stephanie Bishop downplays Lily. The rest of the actors do a brilliant job.Ken Loach's little film is a winner all the way.

Looking for Eric is a blend of comedy, fantasy, philosophy, and social realism that breaks the record for the most "F" words ever used in a motion picture. If it wasn't supposed to be a feel-good comedy that asks you to suspend logic, I would also suggest a "P" word – preposterous. Directed by the team of Ken Loach and Paul Laverty that has brought us such serious dramas as Sweet Sixteen, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and My Name is Joe, Looking for Eric is funny in parts, serious in others, full of both joy and sadness, a true chiaroscuro of life, yet trying to combine gritty social realism with an absurd comic fantasy does not always work.In the film's opening, Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) is a 50'ish postal worker living in a working class section of Manchester England with his two rebellious stepsons Ryan (Gerard Kearns) and Jess (Stepfan Gumbs). Close to a nervous breakdown, Eric manages to survive a car crash but comes home to a house in a total mess and has difficulty in coping with his stepsons who do not listen to him. His friends at work led by Meatballs (John Henshaw) try to cheer him up by telling him jokes but they barely produce a smile. The ever resourceful Meatballs brings all his friends and co-workers together to lead them in process in which they are asked to see themselves through the eyes of someone who really loves them. Done with a minimum of condescension, Loach handles the activity with respect and makes the proceedings plausible.When asked to pick the person they most want to take after, one chooses Nelson Mandela, another Gandhi. Eric chooses Eric Cantona, a French hero of the Manchester United soccer team of 1990. Continuing with the theme of self awareness, Cantona, playing himself, turns up in Eric's vision (presumably as a holographic image) to guide him toward developing a stronger self image. Eric asks Cantona to recall the moments on the football field that he most cherished and, with the postman's exuberant narration, the moments are replayed on screen to almost magical effect. Asked to describe the highlight of his career, instead of talking about a goal he scored, Cantona humbly mentions the time he passed off to a teammate who then scored.Meanwhile, as Cantona supplies the postman with enough proverbs to rival the Book of Solomon, his daughter Sam (Lucy-Jo Hudson) asks him to babysit for her small child while she finishes her education. This leads Eric to confront having to reunite with his ex-wife Lily (Stephanie Bishop) who he walked out on 25 years ago when she was pregnant. Feeling trapped, he turns to Cantona who reminds him that "We always have more choices than we think," After having been talked by his soccer hero through the guilt of abandoning his wife, Eric and Lily meet after many years and remember their most romantic moments when he wore blue suede shoes and they danced together.Unfortunately, Looking for Eric goes off track in the latter part of the film with a convoluted plot involving his stepson Ryan, local hoods, a gun planted in his house, police brutality, and all kinds of high energy mayhem that sends the film into sensory overload. While Loach and Laverty's message about how life works better when we are open and include the people that are closest to us in our problems is a good one, the film eventually becomes so absurd and heavy-handed that it threatens to destroy the charm it had built up earlier. Looking for Eric is an entertaining and heartwarming film that has moments of sheer delight but, as a whole, the ball never quite reaches the net.

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.