Description
Sometimes, to follow your dreams…you’ve go to bend the rules! Audiences and critics alike are cheering wildly for this “exhilarating…terrific comedy” (Entertainment Weekly) about a young girl who is torn between adhering to family traditions and attaining super-stardom on the soccer field. Hailed as the year’s must-see crowd pleaser that “makes you feel good and laugh out loud” (Chicago Sun-Times), “Bend It Like Beckham” scores! (Time Magazine)Amazon.com
Bend It Like Beckham is true girl power. This glorious comedy centers on Jess (Parminder Nagra), an Indian girl born in England whose only desire is to become a football–or, as we say on this side of the Atlantic, soccer–star like her idol, David Beckham; but her traditional family refuses to even consider it. With the help of her new friend Juliet (Keira Knightley), Jess secretly joins a girls’ team under the guidance of a male coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). As the team starts to gain some attention, Jess’s secret can’t be kept forever. The story of Bend It Like Beckham is so genuine and detailed that it transcends all the sports-movie formulas that it also fulfills with cheeky exuberance. Wonderfully acted, and written and directed with loving care by Gurinder Chadha (Bhaji on the Beach, What’s Cooking?), this movie is pure delight from start to finish. –Bret Fetzer
5 Comments for Bend It Like Beckham
Anonymous | October 31, 2009 at 5:47 am
Anonymous | October 31, 2009 at 7:05 am
I bought this movie for my early-teen daughter after reading many reviews. It sounded like it was a feel good ‘follow your dreams’ story that would be uplifting for a young girl to watch. After watching it with my daughter I couldn’t be more disappointed. First, I think it should be rated about PG-17. The content is mature in my opinion and the main character is older than you think (17 or 18) so younger viewers won’t identify. Second, the movie embraces and seems to encourage: lying to and disobeying your parents, disregarding religious values in the home, swearing, drinking, and homosexuality. The only positive value in the movie was its’ reminder of how destructive prejudice is. I hope my daughter got that part, but it had to be hard to find amidst all the negatives. A movie with bad morals isn’t necessarily a bad movie but I was looking for a movie with good morals and that’s not what I got.
Rating: 1 / 5
C. YARBROUGH | October 31, 2009 at 7:37 am
The underlying message I found in this movie was: It’s OK to lie to and decieve your parents, if you think their wrong and you are right. Then if they find out, and punish and order you to stop, it OK to do it again as long as you think the action may lead to some good. I was hopeing to see some intresting soccer moves, espicialy since this movie was named after a great soccer player, but the lead charachter in the movie is an Indian girl, David Beckham doesn’t even have a speaking role in the movie, just a three second walk past the camera at the end of the movie.
Rating: 1 / 5
R. A Rubin | October 31, 2009 at 9:16 am
Well, let me go the other way on some of the more worshipful reviews. If you want an age appropriate film for mid-teens then try New Waterford Girl, 1999. There’s a teen girl buddy story that tackles some tricky problems with wit and script.
Problem 1: The happy talk about the ethnic differences and PC drivel about the immigrants that have swarmed into England for a better life, especially the Muslims, this is a bitter pill to swallow after the 2005 bombings of innocents in London. To be fair, Parmider Nagra’s family is a discriminated upon group of folks with turbans, the Sikh’s. They are non-Muslims in secular white England. You can’t happy talk folks into being more tolerant. Sorry, you can’t.
Problem 2: The sports action scenes are so predictable. They go on and on for half the movie. Nagra overcomes all obstacles and scores the winning goal. No kidding! I didn’t see that one coming.
Problem 3: Neither Nagra or her bosom bud, Keira Knightley look like first class athletes. They are either too short or too skinny. They look better with teased up hair and disco outfits dancing for their skinny ex-soccer prodigy, their coach.
Problem 4: I like ethnic comedies; My Big Fat Greek Wedding comes to mind. But at this point, the generation gap between old country dopes and their offspring in modern Western civilization is tiring. Hey, if your old ways and old country were so great, why don’t you go back there? I’ll tell you why, because there is no opportunity where you came from and people live in dirt. No, we wouldn’t want to be like those Westerners, would we?
Beckman, now he’s a real product of Old England, fierce, determined, and a product of meritocracy, not dimwitted old ways.
Rating: 2 / 5
LoVe2ReAd | October 31, 2009 at 9:17 am
Nothing about this movie was interesting. To write a long review would almost imply that I was interested enough to pay attention to detail. The football scenes didn’t even make it interesting. All I learned from this movie was it’s ok to lie to my folks and sulk through my sister’s special day b/c I couldn’t make a match.
Too predictable for more words than this. If you are in teh mood for a crapfest, watch this.
Rating: 1 / 5
Don’t buy this DVD. It’s realy a waste of money. Bad acting and an even worse and boring script. No imagination at all! A girl that likes to play football and her parents don’t want her to. Wow! How original! Was it hard to write a script like that! STAY AWAY!!!
Rating: 1 / 5