Bend It Like Beckham Review

"Bend It Like Beckham" is a new English comedy that revolves around two teenage girls. Eighteen year-old Jess's parents want her to be a nice, conventional Indian girl. But she just wants to play football like her hero, David Beckham. For Jess, that means kicking a ball around the local park with the lads until she's spotted by Jules, who invites her to join the local women's football team. Jules dreams of playing pro football in the States, but her Mum wishes she could be a bit more girlie - how is she ever going to find a boyfriend if she won't put on a dress? Meanwhile Jess has her own problems at home: her parents don't understand why she won't settle down, study for law school and learn to cook the perfect Indian meal. Consequently Jess takes a lead from her soon to be wed sister Pinky (who long ago mastered the art of deceiving her parents), and simply doesn't tell them when she joins Jules on the local football team.

Writer/director Gurinder Chadha – who previously made the hit English comedy "Bhaji On The Beach" – has delivered another joyful movie here, full of fine performances and great comic moments. In particular Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley excel as the two teenage leads, and their respective mothers offer some of the funniest characters in the film, with Shaheen Khan as a woman who believes her daughter surely played enough football to last a lifetime in her childhood, and Juliet Stevenson as an equally well intentioned ageing glamour puss whose main worry is that all this football and team camaraderie might mean her daughter's a lesbian! A clever and engaging film that celebrates the diverse – but ultimately similar – multicultural strands that make up Britain today, "Bend It Like Beckham" is a uniquely English comedy that will ensure you leave your local multiplex suitably amused and uplifted.