Looking For Eric, Cannes Film Festival

This is Ken Loach in feelgood mode – a film in which the characters don't end up sucked into some social realist whirlpool, never to emerge.

It is humorous but hagiographic in its portrayal of former Manchester United star Eric Cantona (who plays himself – or at least a spliff-smoking Manchester postman's idealised vision of him). Funny and sharply observed, it nonetheless has a sentimentality and contrivance about it that stops it short of its director's best work.

Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) is the postman at the end of his tether. We meet him driving the wrong way round a roundabout. He is likeable but tormented and the trauma of his broken marriage to Lily (Stephanie Bishop) has never worn off. In a despairing moment, he talks to his full-length poster of Cantona ... and, eventually, Cantona talks back.

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Evets and Cantona have a wonderful rapport. Evets conveys admiration verging on reverence. Cantona brings drollness and tenderness to his role. At one point, Eric listens in rapture as Cantona describes what he thought was the greatest moment in a Man U shirt – not a long distance goal or a karate kick of a Crystal Palace fan, but a delicately floated pass to Dennis Irwin. We are always aware that the reason Eric so idolises Cantona is more complex than just hero worship – he represents a time when Eric was happy and at ease.

As in many Loach films, the camaraderie between working men is celebrated and the solidarity and humour of Eric's work colleagues is what helps him exorcise his demons.

Paul Laverty's screenplay deals delicately with his relationship with Lily, who remains the love of his life.

There are digs about the Premier League's greed and how the fan has been priced out of the game. (That Cantona was a product of the Premier League seems to elude Laverty.)

The film stutters in its melodramatic treatment of the thugs who threaten Eric. Plot devices like the gun hidden under the floorboards are clunky and some moments remind you of bad British gangster movies.

Even so, Looking For Eric is an easy film to warm to. The Cantona conceit could have turned to whimsy – at times, it's as if Clarence the Angel from It's A Wonderful Life has stumbled into Loach's universe, but Cantona plays his role with such conviction that you never question why he is sitting on Eric's bed or jogging alongside him by the canal. Moreover, Looking For Eric boasts the most rousing finale of any Loach film. Loach and Laverty make a scene involving masked men terrorising their antagonists the stuff of uplifting comedy – and that's an achievement in itself.

Tribute to the 'Fergie of film'

In his heyday as Manchester United's talisman, Eric Cantona was known for speaking in riddles, as when he said "the salmon that idles its way downstream will never leap the waterfall", writes Arifa Akbar.

These days, the Frenchman is a straight-talking actor. He stars in Ken Loach's film Looking for Eric, which is competing for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

At yesterday's Cannes premiere, Cantona, 42, paid homage to the British director, likening him to his former club boss, Sir Alex Ferguson: "These are two activities that are totally different, but the way they go about getting 100 per cent out of the actors or the players is very similar."

Cantona explained how he learnt to play the trumpet during his nine-month suspension from football for attacking a Crystal Palace fan in 1995: "I decided I should do something productive, so I took up the trumpet."