Director Gurinder Chadha does a great job of balancing dramatic elements with comedic ones.
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As I haven´t seen "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", the only honest comparisons that I can make between "Bend It Like Beckham" and 2002´s surprise hit is that both arose from humble financial origins, both feature ethnic weddings, both feature heroines trying to persuade their respective families to accept their modernity, and both exceeded the usual financial expectations that are accorded to small-budget flicks. If those similarities are enough to whet your interest in "Bend It Like Beckham", then I suggest that you run to the nearest theatre or video store carrying this film. It celebrates a young woman´s love for a sport that isn´t popular on the professional level here in the United States, but it tackles universal themes that make it irrelevant what activity preoccupies the protagonist´s time. She could be passionate about counting individual rice grains, and the movie would still be worth watching. (Okay, maybe not. After all, soccer [football elsewhere in the world] matches involve athletic people gunning balls into goal nets, and the visceral excitement of seeing the way the tides in a game can change from moment to moment gives the movie a lot of its kick.)
In "Bend It Like Beckham", Jesminder "Jess" Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) wants to play soccer for the Hounslow Harriers ladies team. She finds an eager champion in Juliette "Jules" Paxton (Keira Knightley, the decoy queen in "Star Wars 1") and a supportive coach in Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, "Michael Collins"). However, Jess´s heavily-traditional Sikh parents are opposed to their daughters behaving like anything other than traditional Sikh women. No matter that Jess´s older sister, Pinky Bhamra (Archie Panjabi) used to sneak out of the house in order to canoodle with her boyfriend; after all, Pinky´s marrying him now anyway, so where´s the "harm"? In order to continue playing soccer, Jess uses a series of lies, omissions, and deceptions to get her way, and her involvement in modern English society gets her family into enough trouble with the Indian community that Pinky´s fiancé´s parents actually call off the wedding. Yikes!
One of the reasons why the movie is so funny is because its makers don´t shy away from comments that might be taken as politically incorrect by extremely sensitive people. For example, following a public argument involving Jess and Juliette´s mother (the hilarious Juliet Stevenson from Douglas McGrath´s 1996 "Emma") at Pinky´s wedding, one of the older Indian ladies observes, "English people are always complaining when we´re having functions." The line gets a laugh from everyone who´s ever had Asian friends engaged in celebratory behavior because it´s not meant to be stereotypical or racist.
Director Gurinder Chadha does a great job of balancing dramatic elements with comedic ones. There´s a surprising amount of tension in this movie despite the fact that, as a formula, we know that there´s a happy ending for the characters. The best scene that indicates the film´s serious side is the one with a soccer match following Jess and Jules fighting over Joe. During the match, the two girls eye each other more warily than they do their opponents, and when they help each other score goals, they scowl at one another rather than embrace in celebration. All this is accompanied by tense, percussive music.
The film´s three leads are wonderful to watch. I´ve noticed Jonathan Rhys Meyers in a number of projects for years, but he´s always played small parts. Here, as a secondary lead, he refuses to be overshadowed by the two actresses. Keira Knightley gets a chance to shine here in a way that she could not in either "Star Wars 1" or "Pirates of the Caribbean". Her vibrant energy cuts loose, and her fierceness makes her quite a presence. Parminder Nagra is the one who has to carry the movie, of course, and she does it ably. As the calm in this tumult of a family comedy, Nagra anchors the film´s values with her sensible juggling of the character´s empathy for herself as well as for her family´s adherence to tradition.
Of course, there are a number of less-than-top-notch qualities that sharp viewers will notice. The movie is too long by about fifteen minutes, and the resolution is handled so clumsily that it felt like there were at least three different potential endings. Also, most of the characters are written as caricatures rather than as realistic people, so some of the laughs seem a bit cheap and low. Still, none of these issues are invasive enough to distract from the film´s exuberance, energy, and warmth. "Bend It Like Beckham" is a wonderful film to show to children, and it is an enjoyable coming-of-age story that adults--particularly those who are parents themselves--will see that reflects many of our lives.
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