Bend It Like Beckham Review
by David N. Butterworth (dnb AT dca DOT net)April 11th, 2003
BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2003 David N. Butterworth
** (out of ****)
I'll be the first to admit I didn't give "Bend It Like Beckham" much of a chance going in. I'd seen the preview several times and, even though the film
has garnered raves at Sundance and in England (where just about every film about
a likable individual defying the odds/breaking the mould ala "Billy Elliot" is heralded The Feel Good Movie of the Year), it looked slight, corny, and hopelessly
predictable.
"Bend It Like Beckham" is, sad to say, all of these things and more but before I worry its weaker points let me mention a couple of its strengths. Parminder
K. Nagra, in the lead role of Jesminder "Jess" Bhamra, the rebellious daughter of a very strict family of Indian immigrants living in Hounslow, West London, is most appealing. In fact, with one or two exceptions all of the actors are delightfully credible. And the traditional Sikh lifestyle--even the one played out here under Heathrow’s busy flight path--is richly crafted and elegantly detailed. Ah but the performers get saddled with some incredibly lame material as the film tries too hard to be uplifting.
Story-wise here's the drill: 18-year-old Jess loves to play football (soccer
to we heathens). Just for fun, in the park, with the lads. She's good, very good, and definitely better than the lads. But even though her bedroom wall is adorned with posters of her idol, Manchester United star and England captain
David Beckham (aka Mr. Posh Spice), whose specialty is to bend a 25-yard free kick around a human wall into the top corner of the net (hence the film's title),
Jess's parents do not want her to play football. Her mother wants her to cook Indian delicacies like Aloo Gobi, marry a nice Indian boy as her sister Pinky is doing, and settle down. Her father agrees with her mother.
But then Juliette "Jules" Paxton (Keira Knightley), a spunky tomboy who plays for the Hounslow Harriers, a local girls football team, spots Jess's skills
in the park one day and suggests Jess try out for the team. Now Jess has to juggle more than just the ball if she's going to get a crack at pursuing her England dream.
There isn't a professional women's football league in the UK of course, but there is a professional women's soccer league in the USA, and Joe (Jonathan
Rhys-Meyers), the Harriers' soft-eyed, tough-as-nails Irish coach promises his girls there'll be an American scout checking them out at a critical playoff game in Germany.
Along the way, "Bend It Like Beckham" (directed and co-written, with Paul Mayeda Berges and Guljit Bindra, by Gurinder Chadha) serves up cliché after veritable cliché of predictable situations. Everyone in the film is extremely likable though, and it's hard to trash a film that has its heart in the right place, but the humor is forced and obvious and there are very few surprises to be had. Even the soccer scenes themselves are not terribly thrilling. The practices and the games are slickly edited, as the girls first work out, then step it up for the big game, but it looks more like a Nike
commercial--couldn't
we have seen more of the real actors scoring goals?
There's a romantic "subplot" that's thin and cloying with embarrassing references to gays/lesbians and all the while Mrs. Bhamra (Shaheen Khan) throws
up her hands in despair wondering how her daughter could bring such disgrace on her family. "Bend It Like Beckham" is hardly disgraceful, but it left this hardened British football fan with a feeling of being well and truly offside.
--
David N. Butterworth
dnb@dca.net
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