Football, or, more precisely, “association football” (or “soccer” for Americans) is the most popular sport in the world. Yet, all that popularity failed to transcend itself into the silver screen, despite several ambitious attempts to produce high budget football films. There are various reasons for that, ranging from relative lack of football popularity in USA and the features of the Beautiful Game that make it less filmable in comparison to other sports like baseball. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the third most commercially successful football film wasn’t made in Hollywood and wasn’t even the sports film in the strictest of sense. It was Bend It Like Beckham, 2002 British romantic comedy directed by Gurinder Chadha.
The protagonist, played by Parminder Nagra, is Jesminder “Jess” Bhamra, 18-year old girl who lives with her Sikh family in London district of Hounslow. Jess is passionate for football, but her parents don’t support it, especially her father Mohan (played by Anupah Ker), mostly because of his own experiences with racial prejudice while trying to play cricket. Her skills are, however, noticed by Juliette “Jules” Paxton (played by Keira Knightley), member of Hounslow Harriers, local amateur women’s football team and she convinces her to join them. Jess and Jules become friends and the team goes on the tournament in Germany, while Jess convinces her sister “Pinky” Kaur (played by Archie Panjabi), who is about to get married, to cover for her. Friendship between Jess and Jules will be, however, tested when Jess develops romantic feelings for Joe (played by Jonathan Rhys Myers), former Irish footballer who became team’s coach and for whom Jules too has feelings. To make things worse, an important game which is observed by an American scout willing to give university scholarship, falls on the same day as Pinky’s wedding.
Bend It Like Beckham has relatively weak and unremarkable plot that uses most of the cliches of sports dramas and romantic comedies. What makes it stand out is specific ethnic flavour brought by Gurinder Chadha, director and co-writer of Indian origin. She skilfully inserts motives of culture clash between tradition practised by South Asian immigrants and modern sentiments of “cool Britannia” adopted by their children. The latter involves not only transcending racial and ethnic barriers or traditional female roles, but also more tolerance towards alternative sexuality. The latter is depicted in Jess’ old friend Tony (played by Ameet Chana) being depicted as secretly gay and by Jess and Jules being mistaken for a lesbian couple by Jules’ mother (played by Juliet Stevenson). Bend It Like Beckham easily compensates for the lightness of its plot by competent direction and superb work by diverse and talented cast. Parminder Nagra brings a lot of charm in the main role, despite being seemingly overshadowed by much more taller and imposing Keira Knightley who, unlike her, would use her portrayal of as Jules as springboard for much more prominent roles in next few years. Bend It Like Beckham was quite popular at the box office and succeeded not only in promoting some of its stars, but, just like the sport itself, served as tool of diplomacy. In 2010, ten years after establishment of diplomatic relations between United Kingdom and North Korea, it became first Western film to be aired on that country’s state television.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
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