Bend
It Like Beckham is a British film about Jess Bhamra (played
by Parminder K. Nagra), an eighteen-year-old Sikh girl
who loves to play soccer. The title refers to famous British
soccer star David Beckham, whose kicks of the football
pack a curve that bamboozles goalkeepers. One day Jules
(played by Keira Knightley), another teenager, spots Jess
playing soccer and suggests that she should join the local
girls team, the Houndslow Harriers. When she tries out,
coach Joe (played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) takes an immediate
liking to her, so she is admitted to the team. For second-generation
Sikhs in London, opportunities are much more open than
for their parents, who are continuing to observe the same
customs as in India, and that means that a proper role
of a girl is to obey her parents, especially at a time
when wedding bells are tolling for Jess's older sister
Pinky (played by Archie Panjabi). Even Jules's British
mother Paula (played by Juliet Stevenson) does not accept
the concept of a daughter who is more interested in soccer
than in dating boys. Having established the generation
gap as the central conflict in the film, the rest is obvious.
Jess's father and Jules's mother ultimately become reconciled
to their respective daughters as soccer players. They play
well, are discovered by an American soccer scout, and leave
in the end for the University of Santa Clara on full scholarship.
Much of the film emphasizes generational conflicts. In
exasperation Jess once says, "Anyone can cook aloo
gobi. Not everyone can bend it like Beckham." But
perhaps the most profound admission comes from Jess's father,
who confesses that he was a superb cricket player in India,
but after immigrating to England he was not allowed to
join a team because of his race. When he sees that his
daughter has an opportunity to break through a barrier
that earlier held him back, he gives full support to Jess
to embark on a soccer career, whereupon her mother does
not object. Directed by Gurinder Chadha, also the director
of What's Cooking? (2000), the message is to let children "bend" the
constraints of traditional culture to become bicultural
in a multiethnic Britain where minorities and women can
now break through former barriers in sports. Indeed, when
the film became commercially successful last year, women
all over Britain as well as parts of India began to flood
the various amateur teams with requests to sign up. MH
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