Looking for Eric

Supporters’ kinship

LOOKING FOR ERIC
Director Ken Loach
116 minutes
Cert. 15

Looking For Eric is a working-class fairytale about community and brotherhood. Although imperfect, the film is thoroughly entertaining with a number of memorable moments.

‘Little Eric’ Bishop is a football-mad postal worker with a life that has fallen apart. The turning point comes when Bishop’s hero, Manchester United legend Eric Cantona ‘appears’ in his front room. Subsequently, Cantona becomes his imaginary life-coach, inspiring Bishop to sort out his own life and the lives of those he loves.

At first, Bishop assumes his idol to have had an easy existence with no need of anyone else. However, Cantona explains that he could not have been a success without others. Asked his greatest moment in football, he selects a pass. Rather than simply obtaining glory for himself, his greatest moment was through helping another.

Director Ken Loach (known for TV drama Cathy Come Home and film Kes) employs a social realist style which reflects his own socialism. Looking for Eric features a group of friends from a postal sorting office. In the end, it is they, rather than just football star Cantona that become the heroes. Towards the climax of the film all the friends don Cantona masks to help Bishop protect his family — they are all Cantonas, all one big team of comrades helping each other.

Socialist humanism

It would be easy to see Looking For Eric as a demonstration of how football has become an idol in our society. However, the film also demonstrates positive aspects of football culture from its portrayal of its skill and the beauty of the game to the kinship between supporters.

The moral which underlines the importance of brotherly love has much to be applauded. Although the message of the film is inspired by socialist humanism not the gospel, the selfless love and support seen in Little Eric’s fellow postal workers should be found in our own churches. True glory is found in putting others first, as Christ became our slave at the cross. The unconvincing ‘fairytale ending’ of the film reminds us that only through Christ can we be fully reconciled to one other.

John Dray

© Evangelicals Now - August 2009
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