Deborah Ross

Poster hero

Looking for Eric<br /> 15, Nationwide

issue 13 June 2009

Looking for Eric
15, Nationwide

Looking for Eric is Ken Loach’s latest film, and while one worships Ken Loach generally and his early work in particular — Cathy Come Home; Family Life; Kes; all of which will still blow your socks off today — I’m just not at all sure about this. I mean, it’s fine, and it’s good-natured enough, and it has its moments but it just seems disappointingly unoriginal; a sort of cross between The Full Monty and Play It Again, Sam leading to a finale that is so sentimental it goes beyond mawkish and may even be the full mawk. Listen, I can do the full mawk. I can take it. Didn’t I cry at the end of Marley & Me and didn’t I cry buckets? I suppose that, in this instance, I just expected something more truthful.

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