You don't really associate director Ken Loach or screenwriter Paul Lavery with Magical Realism, but that's what these two provocative filmmakers have deliverd.
Icing on this surprise cake is the large dollop of humour topping what is a poignant and accessible human tale. Some scenes are laugh-out-loud, others produces loud smiles of recognition. All help dissolve the lump in your throat, and, dare I say, the odd tear or two.
Loach excels at making the lives of ordinary folk extraordinary enough to earn screen time. And so we have Eric, a maudlin postman caught in the chaos of a homelife that mirrors the changing fabric of domestic society.
He's been left with two stepsons, each with different and unknown dads. The boys are flexing their muscles of drug and booze tolerance and porno promises. The house is a post-cyclone mess.
What gets Eric through the depression that's closing in on him is the abiding memory of his first and only love for Lily. He couldn't escape it if he wanted to - which he doesn't - because their duaghter Sam's made them grandparents, forcing contact, building bridges to both past and future.
All that, and, of course, the Manchester United legend that is Cantona. How the legend invades Eric's life is the journey of the film. I can't pretend the path is free from sentimental pebbles, or that the resolution is inevitable, but it fits the tone of the film. More importantly, it proves Loach is no grumpy mumbler. He's offering hope, and hope born of a belief in what people are capable of. A hope that people are indeed more important than profits.
Unlike some of his films, this is not focused on class issues. But Loach is one of the few directors who presents working men and women as morally decent, intellectually competent and capable as the money-flashers.
There's so much to like in this film, not least a delightful, unstudied and honest performance by Cantona. I don't know a football from a whelk, but Eric scored for me.
Would be better if Daisy were about ten, though. There's not really any advantage from her being a baby and it would explain why Sam didn't complete a degree at the typical time.
