Ken Loach, 15 (117min)
Loach’s nail-biting comedy stars the French football legend Eric Cantona in a film of two halves. In the first, a postman called Eric Bishop is having a nervous breakdown. His sons treat him like a doormat. And he’s hounded by guilt for leaving the love of his life, Lily.
Cue Eric Cantona. How would the King handle Bishop’s assorted crises? In a surreal and comic scene, the former Manchester United star steps out of a poster on the wall of Bishop’s bedroom and starts dispensing gobbets of advice. It’s an extraordinary piece of magic realism for a director who usually specialises in impeccable art house grit. Cantona is basically a ghost, visible only to the delusional Bishop.
But the pleasure of watching a bearded Cantona playing life coach to the postman is rigged with uncertainty. The impression in the first half of the film is that Bishop has lost his marbles. In the second half, the chemistry between Steve Evets’s hero and Cantona taps a vintage Loach theme about the essential decency of human nature. Old-fashioned teamwork is required to rescue one of Bishop’s errant sons from the clutches of a local Manchester gangster. Bishop is forced to put away his panic attacks to save his family. The upbeat way he goes about it turns this rare Loach comedy into a seriously funny watch.