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Loach and Cannes
Ken Loach isn’t known for feel-good movies. The naturalistic British director won the Palme d’Or a couple of years ago for the wrenching Irish film, “The Wind That Shakes the Barley.”
But this year, his competition entry, “Looking for Eric,” can’t help but make you smile.
It deals with a working-class postman whose life is in a shambles, and when his son gets mixed up with a mobster, he has to come up with a plan. So he turns to his idol, the former soccer great Eric Cantona. Cantona pops up regularly in the movie as a imaginary friend, and the press in Cannes went wild for him.
Nearly every question at a press conference was directed to the Manchester United soccer idol. But Loach got a few. The man who plays Eric the postman, Steve Evets, got no questions at all.
Apparently, he gets no respect in real life either.
At any rate, the movie is sure to make it to U.S. arthouses, which rarely get such feel-good movies from Loach. It has a “Full Monty” feel, without the nudity, of course.
Working-class people triumph, and lives get turned around. It should be a Palme d’Or contender.
The big screening tomorrow (Wednesday) is Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.”
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