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Quickcard Review

Looking For Eric

Directed by: Ken Loach

Cast: Steve Evets, Eric Cantona, Stephanie Bishop, Gerard Kearns

Running Time: 1 hr 55 mins

Rating: R

Release Date: June 18, 2010 (limited)

Plot: A suicidal father (Steve Evets) tries to pull his life together with the help of his imaginary friend, real-life soccer legend Eric Cantona.

Who’S It For?: This will please the optimists of the art-house crowd, but even mainstream audiences have the potential to find this movie to be quite enjoyable. Familiarity with Eric Cantona beforehand is not necessary.

Overall

According to soccer player Eric Cantona in his worshipful film, the greatest moment in his sports career “was a pass.” With Looking For Eric, the therapeutic assistance offered by the Yoga Berra of soccer proverbs becomes a guiding light for a man who starts off in drastic darkness (the first scene of the movie has a suicide attempt) and ends...

Chicago – In our latest comedy/sports edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 50 admit-two passes up for grabs to the advance Chicago screening of “Looking for Eric”! It’s a soccer comedy that was an official selection at 2009’s Cannes Film Festival and our very own Chicago International Film Festival.

The film from director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty features Steve Evets, Eric Cantona, Stephanie Bishop, Gerard Kearns, Stefan Gumbs, Lucy-Jo Hudson, Cole Williams, Dylan Williams, Matthew McNulty and Laura Ainsworth.

To win your free pass to the advance Chicago screening of “Looking for Eric” courtesy of HollywoodChicago.com, just answer our question below. That’s it! This screening is on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 7 p.m. in Chicago. Directions to enter this HollywoodChicago.com Hookup and immediately win can be found beneath the graphic below.

The movie poster for “Looking for Eric”.

Image credit: IFC Films

Here is...

At first, "Looking for Eric" seems like a typical Ken Loach picture, proletarian through and through. We meet Eric Bishop (curly-mopped, thickly accented newcomer Steve Evets) literally going in circles, driving the wrong way on a roundabout and getting into an accident. Stumbling home from the hospital, he takes time to trade insults with his two teenage stepsons, Ryan (Gerard Kearns) and Jess (Stefan Gumbs). Pointed dialogue reveals that he still mourns the absence of his beloved first wife, Lily (Stephanie Bishop), who left him long ago. At the post office where he works as a mail sorter, his colleagues, led by a fellow dubbed Meatballs (John Henshaw), take turns trying to cheer Eric up by telling him jokes. Only the life-sized poster of Cantona on Eric's bedroom wall seems willing to lend the poor bloke a sympathetic ear. Then one day, Cantona himself is standing there, in the flesh,...

• British outfit Icon Film Distribution has picked up the UK home and theatre rights to acclaimed director Ken Loach’s latest Looking For Eric, currently in production in Manchester. The film is being repped by the fine folks at Wild Bunch with Sixteen Films, Canto Bros., and Why Not Productions adding to the British/French co-production. Screen describes the story as following “Eric, a Manchester-based postman who finds himself in a personal crisis because of his broken heart and chaotic family life.” The film was spawned through conversations between Loach, writer Paul Laverty, producer Rebecca O'Brien, and French football legend Eric Cantona. Whether the picture’s Eric has any direct or rhetorical relation to Cantona is unclear. Also unclear is the role the great game plays in the film, though it is described as being "inspired by the foot-balling genius of Eric Cantona and his very special relationship with all who love football.

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