SincereFinest
disgusting, overrated, pointless
Inadvands
Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess
Melanie Bouvet
The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
Sancy Jeg
I love this movie a lot. The story takes place in Europe where an Indian girl, Jess is obsessed to play football but her parents would not let her play. Her friends Jules and Tony and her coach Joe convince her to play football. Before watching this movie I thought football was boy's games but after watching this movie I am so interested in football. I suggest everyone to go for this movie.
Jak Jhonsen
Bend it like Beckham was released 2002 and is a comedy, drama and romance movie about a teenage Indian girl rebelling against her parents. The movie was directed Gurinder Chadha ho I also known for 'Paris, je t'aime', 'Bride and Prejudice' and 'Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging'.Bend it like Beckham is about reaching your goals even if it means you need to bend the rules. The movie is based around Jesminder Bhamra for short she's called Jess. She's the daughter of a highly traditional family from India who do not understand her desire of playing football. For them learning to make food and getting a husband are more important then football. If the movie sounds cliché, it's probably because it is rather cliché. You could probably guess the ending of the movie accurate with what I've told you. The movie doesn't tell you much you did not know about Indian culture, and even worse it touches on homophobic attitude of religious cultures for 3 minutes and drops it for the rest of the movie. Why would you have a gay character if you were never going to anything with it? The movie also attempts to show racism but that's also barely touched on. The movie is obviously just a football movie with a lot of tacked on content to cover the lack of depth. Tacked on content isn't bad it's just when it's done half-way and about such important topics. The movies saving grace are the actors who do their best to give life to the two dimensional characters. It's rather hard to find one bad actor in the movie, but by no means is the writing their working with any good. The movie is overall predictable, cliché and a bundle of half-done side content. There is not real reason for anyone to watch the movie at all it adds nothing new ore fresh to the world. The movie feels from beginning to end like a shore and that's when a movie truly fails. Even children I can see getting bored by the movie, I can't recommend the movie to anyone at all open hearted. The movie over all gets three out of six. It's not bad it's just so cliché and so meaning less that there is no reason to kill time watching the movie.
jb_campo
I finally watched this movie over the weekend and it was pretty much what I expected, hence my OK rating of 6/10. The film portrays Jess, a teenage Panjab Indian living in London, who has special skills playing soccer. However, her family wants her to go to school, get a husband, get a job, have kids, and be bored the rest of her life. Jess will have none of it. The story goes on a predictable trail where she is discovered, gets to play on a girl's team, wins her father's heart, wins the final game on a penalty kick, and goes off to America on a soccer scholarship. Very neat and clean movie, but not much substance.There were several problems with this film. It could have been a lot shorter. Most of the soccer scenes could really have been cut down. The dancing at the wedding could have really been cut. The silly, puzzling story line of potential lesbianism should have seen the editing floor up close and personal, right next to the stupid homosexual scene with her best friend. For these, I blame the director. He tried to add some substance to a movie that really barely could handle what it had.The one bright spot was the exceptional acting of Jess's father. He was rock solid, believable, as was the other girl's father. But the two mothers, especially the English one, Juliet Stevenson, was way over the top. Again - fault of the director. Lastly, the coach, Joe, was OK, but really, come on, you know you're not supposed to fraternize with your female team, and you break the rules big time. If I was his boss, I'd have fired his butt on the spot.So, ignore all that nonsense, plus the unnecessary story lines, and you have a nice little teenage angst story with the Indian cultural twist to add some spice. If the Director had settled for that, this movie would have been much better.
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.
