New Moon is nothing if not an international advertisement for the hungry virtues of virginity and young people can’t get enough of it
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
Theatre
A smart, prickly and rewarding view of sexual and emotional confusion
Cock
Restaurants
Kitchen W8 is a bargain for this area, if such sophistication is what you crave
Kitchen W8
Too long and drawn out but very entertaining with excellent special effects
This is a peculiar play and does not work for me. Some of it is very funny but there are real flaws
Alex has a strong powerful voice and was faultless, she is far better now than she was on the X-Factor
London,
Andrew O'Hagan's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Ken Loach.
Cast: Steve Evets, Eric Cantona, Stephanie Bishop, Gerard Kearns, Lucy-Jo Hudson, Stefan Gumbs
Description: Eric Bishop is a postman whose life went into free-fall the day he ran out on his childhood sweetheart, Lily. Abandoned by his wife and forced to singlehandedly raise his two rebellious stepsons, Ryan and Jess, Eric is teetering on the brink of a mental breakdown, with only his workmates including Meatballs to keep him sane. After the latest fiery encounter with his boys, Eric takes one of Ryan's joints and begins talking to his favourite poster of Manchester United legend Eric Cantona, searching for inspiration. Miraculously, the footballer appears to Eric and becomes the postman's invisible friend, guiding the single father on a journey back to self-redemption.
Country: UK. 2009. 116mins
Glass act: Eric Cantona plays a figment of himself, conjured up by a Manchester postman
Ken Loach is liked by the French, mainly because he makes literate films with a social conscience. But they also like him because he knows a thing or two about British absurdity, a knowledge that has grown, in recent years thanks to a fruitful partnership with the writer Paul Laverty. In a world where it is almost part of the trades descriptions act for screenwriters to be cynical, Laverty is a writer who is warm, thoughtful, human and hopeful, and this latest collaboration between them shows that he can also be as funny as he likes.
Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) is a Manchester postman who is going off his trolley. He has panic attacks and he lives in a house with a couple of lazy sods, his stepsons, whom he has looked after since his wife bolted years before. Eric, too, was a bolter in his turn: his first wife, Lily, got pregnant and, fearing the commitment, he ran away. That was 30 years ago but now she’s back in his life, via their daughter and her child, and his anxieties appears to have gone nuclear.
The guys at the post office, directed by the main loudmouth and comedy turn Meatballs (John Henshaw), try telling Eric jokes, and then Meatballs drafts everybody in for concerted self-help sessions. Eric is a bit far gone and self-involved, and the jokes don’t help; neither does the self-help, so he begins talking to the poster of Eric Cantona that hangs in his bedroom. Eric is smoking a spliff, and it must be strong stuff, because next thing we know Cantona has stepped down from the poster and is smoking the thing alongside him.
In a number of very natural, tender scenes, we see Eric discussing his troubles with Le Roi, whose way with a gnomic Gallic conundrum is as good as it was in the heyday of his Manchester United press conferences.
Loach seldom fails when it comes to showing people at large in their everyday lives. It should be a no-brainer for a film-maker but it can be full of pitfalls: many films tie people up in falsity, in melodrama, in staginess, or in cliché. Loach can tell a story that relies, as many of Laverty’s scripts do, on the complications of trying to be genuine, good and free when life constantly throws obstacles in the way.
Film Trailers by Filmtrailer.com
Eric the postman may be deep in a fantasy but everything about him is real. He makes bad decisions and ridiculous moves but there’s a genuine heart at the centre of Eric, a man battling against some real emotional afflictions and a habit of failure. Evets plays the part with honesty and feeling. He brings a note of genuine awe to his scenes with Cantona but is never afraid to argue with the great man, which is part of the enjoyment built into the relationship.
But can Cantona act? It’s not as easy as it looks, inhabiting a persona that is such a known public quantity — and Cantona was always a performance as much as a sportsman — but the Frenchman does himself proud. You can’t make out what he’s saying half the time, but then you never could, and he joins wholeheartedly in the good gag that powers the story forward.
Cantona first came to Loach because he wanted to be involved in a film about the fans in Manchester, and the resulting movie shows he approached the right people: the real subject of the film is English community and that is something Loach understands intimately. Eric’s friends at the post office are football fans but they are also fans of the fans, a phenomenon that Cantona must have experienced in spades during his time at Manchester United. In the film, that sense of camaraderie becomes the main subject under investigation, Loach and Laverty stylishly dramatising the effort of these people to understand and then fully occupy their togetherness.
A messy subplot involving some local thugs and their threat to one of the stepsons at one point threatens to tip the film into farce. There is room for farce, and I think British cinema probably has too little of it, but Loach errs just on the right side of caution when it comes to handling these elements. We are asked to swing very far from the film’s darker concerns and the last third devotes itself to some stirring Ealing comedy-style improbabilities.
Yet there’s no doubting that Looking for Eric is a lively piece of entertainment. It is always satisfying to see an arch-realist testing his certainties, even reaching from time to time, as Loach does here, into the joyfully fantastical.
It is an extension rather than a departure, for even if the new film does not address the hot topics of a contemporary social conscience — not a struggle for liberation in sight, not a strike, not an ingrained prejudice — it nevertheless has a properly political interest in the human effort to live in a state of harmony. Conflicts are raised and solidarity is tested but always here with a mask of humour, Loach driving towards the goal with a lightness of touch that wouldn’t have shamed the man himself.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
Tonight:
9°c
