joshuafagan-64214
In a fair world, this wouldn't have had to be an indie movie. When I think about indie movies that got popular, I think about films like Juno, quirky and unusual films that came out at just the right time to strike a deep, fundamental chord with a mainstream audience. This film is not like that. It's a simple, straightforward story of two girls who love to play soccer.Then again, it is fortunate that this is an indie movie. Mainstream execs would have ruined this film. They are good at one thing: selling films to as big an audience as possible. That is not a crime, and saying it is their job, I have a hard time condemning them for doing it. But mainstream appeal comes at a cost: the soul of the film. Now I'm not saying big blockbusters cannot have a soul, but trying to convert a smaller film into a big blockbuster can drain it of what made it special in the first place.This film certainly is special. It's not spectacular- this is no MMFR or Godfather or Princess Mononoke- but it lifts itself above and beyond its genre contemporaries. The craft is excellent, from the cinematography to the use of music, and the writing is surprisingly spot-on.It is also impressively earnest. Many films of this genre have that studio sheen and professional smugness to them, as if they know they are exploiting their viewers for profit's sake. The quality of the films suffers for it. Typically, the people who write and direct these films are a generation or two older than their characters. If they care enough to put some effort into the film, this is either undetectable or inoffensive, but if they do not, things can get ugly real fast.This would have posed even more of a problem in this film's case. One of its two main characters is Indian. Studio execs have enough trouble handling foreign cultures in dramatic contexts. In comedic contexts, they are completely lost. This, along with racism and slavish devotion to traditional ideas of money-making, is one of three ways why they stay away from these sorts of movies entirely, and while that is heartbreaking and I'd love to see it change, I can't say it's comforting to see a big studio movie bumbling its way through a culture it does not understand. The end product is usually either bland and boring or, worse, stupid and insensitive.Thankfully, studio execs were not involved, and the filmmakers, who understand exactly what they're doing, handle their topics deftly and smoothly. This is not an esoteric film. You don't need a deep understanding of India, Britain, or Sikhism to like or understand this movie. But the filmmakers' knowledge informs on it heavily. They don't have to reach or shoot blindly into the dark. They know their playbook, they know what they're dealing with.This film is their baby. They put an unusual amount of effort into it. While not every sequence works, there is an air of grandeur and passion to the all thing. This is not to be confused with an air of pretension: this very much is a romantic comedy through and through. The filmmakers simply care about fleshing out their story and characters, making the experience interesting and thoughtful instead of half-baked and slapped together.The relationship between the two girls is stellar. Friendships are not often done well in films, but the playful, affirming chemistry between them is just great. While it does fall into clichés and contrivances, including a limp love triangle, its energy and fluidity and strength more than makes up for that. The way most hacks write friendships, it's a wonder they had friends at all- maybe they didn't. This film gets its two main characters and the relationships between them.If there is a villain in this film, it is binding, restrictive beliefs. The cultures these beliefs erupt from are not bad, but the beliefs themselves are, particularly when they stand in the way of dreams and hopes. More than soccer, this is a film about culture and how it defines groups of people. Jess' sister wants to have a nice Indian wedding and start a family, and that's fine. Jess wants to go to America and play soccer, and that's also fine. In an era in which so many are scared of losing their culture, this film shows that cultures are at their strongest when they interact with other cultures, swapping ideas and thoughts, helping everyone get the lives they want and strive for.
shouldased
My daughter made me watch Bend it Like Beckham with her several years ago, and I found it to be one I can re-watch. It contains very little of the teenage romance and clothing angst that often fills young adult movies. What it does have is a lot of humanity and heart. This movie is made up of a multitude of small moments of cultural misunderstanding: some cute, some mean, some funny, all of which need to be resolved by Jess and her parents. It does a wonderful job of showing us the contrast between English and Hindu (living in England) middle class home life. It is about following dreams and using talents, within the cultural clash and racial prejudice of middle class suburban London. Set in Houndslow (a suburb near Heathrow airport) Jesminder Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) is an eighteen-ish girl caught between living in British society and living in a household still grounded in Hindu culture. Father is an airline pilot for (apparently) an Indian airline (he wears a turban in uniform). Jess is an extremely talented footballer (soccer) always running circles around the boys in the pickup matches in the park. She knows her soccer days will soon end with an arranged marriage and her mother's life ahead of her. She is unaware of any alternative, nor of any possible future as a girl soccer player. Enter Jules (Keira Knightley) a star player in a girl's league. She sees Jess beating up on the boys in the park and stops to watch on successive days then approaches her to join their team. Jess is stunned to learn there is such a thing as a girl's league. Jules also tells her there are even girl's pro teams in America. Jess joins her team and through teamwork and selflessness they become a deadly duo in scoring and assisting.Of course, there are problems: Jess has to keep the girl's team a secret from her parents, her mother is constantly demanding of Jess's time to do traditional tasks, her relationship with a white girl is cause for much gossip and malicious rumor within the Hindu community, she must bare her legs in public by wearing shorts, and there is a hint of romance with the coach (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) that causes a rift between Jess and Jules, conflicts and trust issues with her sister, and Jules's mother begins to think the girls are lesbian. Once her parents learn that she is playing on a team, they stand united that football is at an end and she will get married or go to university and then get married. Jess continues to sneak off and play until the championship game conflicts with her sister's wedding. But with the help of her cousins and her father, she gets away from the reception and plays the second half, returning to the wedding celebration wearing a huge smile that is not lost on her father.Poor father (Anupam Kher). He's the lynch pin of the story. As a young Hindu man in England he had been shunned on the cricket fields and quit on his dream in disgust. Now, he's caught between his daughter's dreams, talent and joy as a footballer; his assumption is that she will face the same indignities he had. He watches part of a match where Jess is obviously fouled by a white girl, but when Jess reacts badly it is she that draws the red card; thus enforcing her father's conclusion. There is also his wife's insistence that Jessminder must pursue a traditional life in the role of a subservient Hindu wife and mother. After the championship game, when the family discovers that Jess scored the winning goal, and has won a scholarship to play soccer in America, Father succumbs and refuses to deprive his daughter of the happiness that he threw away. At the end, both Jules's and Jess's families are saying goodbye at the airport. Jess's passionate kisses with the coach seemed ignored by her mother. I find this a script flaw. A Hindu mother (and most other mothers) would've reacted and could've been a nice comical ending moment. There was some predictability to the story, and I felt the end was a bit rushed. But all-in-all I found it an enjoyable and memorable movie from start to finish.
