Looking for Eric

Some fascinating, contrasting ideas by writer Paul Laverty and director Ken Loach come into play in this film: breaking the myth and deflating celebrity status as way more than human while advocating the notion of solidarity, just being there and admiring friends as we are always stronger as a team than individuals. Celebrity status has really become a joke as regular folks fawn all over them to the extreme like some sort of gods... There is too much attention given to any type of STAR power while the lower classes seem to linger in a wasteland of nothingness. With the above good premise or idea on which to base their film, it unfortunately falls short for several reasons.

The protagonist (Steve Evets) is a man too intent on celebrity, eventually causing more trouble than anyone bargained for, the film becoming much too convoluted as to show no social realism at all. Evets plays some ordinary postman trying to escape modern life through football (soccer) and what its heroes can bring its fans. Real life French footballer ERIC CANTONA is used in the film to some effect. For me, the problem of the film is twofold. Firstly, it becomes way too complicated that it sinks into the ridiculous. Secondly, Evets's use of a horrendously thick Manchester accent, that perhaps many English would not fully comprehend, I believe prevented a lot of people seeing this film. Ironically, Eric Cantona's English is much more readily understood though he is French, as stated.

It boggles my mind why Ken Loach, who makes very few films, can't get it into his head that very thick accents without sub-titles have led to a good deal of ruination of his films, some NOT given any type of wide release. Loach's brilliant KES which suffers from too thick a Yorkshire dialect or accent prevented it from getting international release being deemed almost impossible to understand. Having seen KES as the above Looking For Eric, I can tell you trying so hard to understand the spoken word does not make for good viewing pleasure. I guess some directors would rather have a failure on their hands than make simple enough changes to their films without compromising their principles.