COMIC DRAMA; 1hr 56min
STARRING: Eric Cantona, Steve Evets, Stephanie Bishop
What a blast: from left, Cantona and Evets
Back in the day, Eric Cantona (as himself) was the star footballer for Manchester United and postman Eric Bishop (Evets) had married his dream woman (Bishop as Lily). But that was 30 years ago and these days, postman Eric is twice divorced, angry, depressed and put upon at every turn by his insolent teenage stepsons (Gerard Kearns and Stefan Gumbs). Not surprisingly, Eric is eaten alive with panic and regret and as the leading man in a Ken Loach movie, he isn’t suffering in silence.
That said, Loach (The Wind That Shakes the Barley) and screenwriter Paul Laverty are looking on the lighter side: as beset as he is, footy-mad Eric sustains himself with conversations with an imaginary Cantona, who dispenses words of wisdom in a crème fraîche accent and is the inspiration for a loony rescue mission by Eric and his mates that saves the postie’s problematic day. It’s a patchy redemption, segueing into the mildly surreal and too windy at two hours. But it’s loaded with tough love.
