Ken Loach
Il Mio Amico Eric

Sparse and bristly stubble: that gray brushstroke present in comics to depict convicts, just to get what I mean. The sun seeks a crevice in the window while the elongated sounds of horns, distorted by ever-changing distance, and intermittent headlights provide the soundtrack and scenic lights to a deliberately deadly asphalted merry-go-round. For eleven times it goes well, then the acidic sound of braking followed by a nice twisting of metal sheets marks the opening credits.

Every damned day I have a front-row seat, obsessed and surrounded by red numbers with a minus in front. Blood-colored hopeful eyes bear down on me amid the dark circles of exhausted people struggling not just to make it to the end of the month, but to the 20th. This crisis was birthed by the geniuses of financial mathematics. Those 110 super magna cum laude with academic kiss included who invented the cursed derivatives and those banks that issued mortgages on a vast scale committing well beyond 100% without bothering to verify the repayment capacity of clients blinded by profit. Year after year. If only it had ended with a big apocalyptic pole in the lower regions of said amoebas, respectable and untouchable "rating" agencies included. But of course not; the world being intertwined, the domino effect was inevitable. Their fall drove the market insane. Panic and zero liquidity. And this had repercussions on the real economy worldwide. And so you, who don’t even know what the heck finance is and were tucked away at the ass end of nowhere at least a couple of Jules Verne away from all of this and had your more or less quiet and satisfying little job. You, who had a mortgage based on what you believed was a solid and lasting job, you get it without ifs or buts right there. In the ass. Now they tell us it’s all over, that there’s clarity behind the clouds but the climb will be long and slow: because people got burned and consumption will be contained and companies to avoid closing will cut even further. Meanwhile, the biggest banks managed in the last months with a final rush by the end of the year to award their managers breathtaking bonuses. Seems fair to me.

Merry Christmas.

Yes, all these lines are probably, indeed certainly, too many and perhaps misplaced to say something banal: which I justify with the economic situation in which we live for a film so unexpectedly optimistic and hopeful like "Looking for Eric" by Ken Loach. The director lights us up: a two-hour hope for a fairy tale which probably even he doesn’t believe . It indeed starts from the lowest point imaginable: an attempt to end one's own existence and obviously tries to climb to an exaggerated finale. A film linear in its exponential trend that captures, with harshness and drama, the life of Eric Mr. Nobody. A boy who with a series of not enviable but nonetheless understandable fuck-ups ruined his youth and compromised his adult life. He looks in the mirror at 50 and would like to spit in his face after two divorces. He can't get through to his wild kids, has no leisure, finds no satisfaction in work, and isolates himself from friends.

Unexpectedly, from the fumes of some cannabis watered with a drink, the turning point arrives. It's already a miracle that "Looking For Eric" hasn’t been translated here as "the distributor cap of the enchanted roller coaster" and for this, I am truly grateful to the intellectual translators. Yet the core of the film lies, in my opinion, precisely in the verb. Looking for. To seek. Unlucky Eric, pumped from the hallucination of rebellious youth idol Cantona, wakes from the torpor in which he was vegetating and finds himself. He needed a good slap, and he gets it from that giant poster that comes to life and with self-made philosophy and football metaphors spurs him on with ad hoc hallucinations. With his irresistible style like an arrogant champion sure of himself, he will change the life of our bony and angular protagonist.

The screenplay, as often happens in British movies, gets a bit carried away in the last quarter of the film, but in the end what Loach offers is a well-served dish of hope, forgiveness, sacrifice, and willingness to act. Photography and editing are dry with just a few quick flashbacks. Sharp and dry dialogues in which the self-irony of the beautiful character of the Man. United number 7 and the gray sarcasm of Eric the fan well portrayed by Steve Evets stand out. A bit of nostalgia with healthy classic rock in the background to recall those historic and epic runs down the right wing and that night at the ball with Lily where everything seemed like a happy ending from a Walt Disney movie. And the minutes fly by.

The moral is so it’s never too late to smoke a joint while drinking a couple of glasses of wine?? Jokes aside, with paternal optimism, Loach invites us not to do a "Venezia" by seeking the solitary action for the cinematic archive. The world, alas, is full of Bruce Harpers and devoid of Holly Hattons. Even an assist can be divine. The work sublimates values like modesty, generosity, and trust. Adjectives that at 7:30 in the morning seem dead, buried, and forgotten when you see gel-haired, arrogant newbies taking seats from frail, bent old ladies on buses. Teamwork, not closing yourself completely in, and being able to involve friends in moments when you most want to become ostriches is what we should be looking for/searching for in the future to try to get out of the hole in which, for one reason or another, we have found ourselves. Utopian and Christmassy hyper-caloric optimism, but well-cooked and sure to please.

3/4 stars