Bend It Like Beckham
Whatever Makes You Happy
Lots of people read the reviews on this website, and for that I am grateful. But I have no doubts what it is that people really want to know. That’s simple. People want to know whether a given movie is a good movie or a bad movie. Even an easy proposition, like how Identity is a good movie because it includes a lot of elements we’ve seen too many times in bad movies is too much information. This is why Roger Ebert does the thumbs-up or thumbs-down thingy, and it is why Rotten Tomatoes has “fresh” and “rotten” ratings. Simple.
(Note: I have not had one single movie review on my site ever get more hits than my top-ten list from 2002; the next-closest review has half again as many hits. Why? People want to know where the good movies are. Simple.)
For the last month, when people have asked me, in my high-and-mighty role as a Film Critic, what movies out now they should see, I have given them a very simple answer. “Go see Bend It Like Beckham“, I say.
“What?” they say.
“Bend It Like Beckham,” I reply. I usually say it very slowly, enunciating every word clearly, so I know they’ve heard it right, so I know they understand.
I usually get two responses. “What’s Bend It Like Beckham?” some say. If they say this, I explain. “Well, ‘Beckham’ is the name of a famous soccer player from England. The movie is about a young Indian girl from London who wants to play soccer, but her parents won’t let her.”
Generally, as soon as people hear the word “soccer”, their eyes glaze over, and they say, “Oh,”, and then tell me how much they liked Phone Booth. Fine.
But, sometimes, people will tell me, “Oh, yeah, my friend/cousin/mother/significant other saw that, and liked it a lot. Maybe I’ll go see it.” That’s more like it.
Bend It Like Beckham is a hard sell in this country. Think about it for a minute.
- The title is unhelpful. The word “Beckham” is the problem; nobody in this country knows who he is. Heck, I’ve seen the movie and I’m still not sure. He appears to be married to a member of the “Spice Girls”, whatever they were or are. He is ostensibly a player on a British soccer team; from what I can make out, he plays for the Manchester Vodaphones. He is famous because he can kick the soccer ball so that it “bends” around the goalie on its way to the net, thereby allowing his team to “score”. Unless there’s a scoreless tie, which seems to happen a lot.
(Note: This review will be halted for one minute so that fans of Manchester United can e-mail me to express their feelings about poking fun at the name of their team and their sport. Thank you.)
- The movie is about soccer. I will be the first one to tell you that I don’t get soccer. Period. I am a proud American, and a Dallas Cowboys fan, and I am constitutionally obligated to point out that soccer is low-scoring, dull to watch on television, and thereby un-American in every way. But that doesn’t detract, in any way, from the charm of Bend It Like Beckham. You don’t have to care about soccer, or even recognize its existence as a competitive sport, to enjoy Bend It Like Beckham.
- The movie is about the Indian community in England. First off, this makes it a foreign movie, and American audiences don’t watch many foreign movies, even though everyone speaks English. (Bend It Like Beckham closely resembles the underrated Billy Elliot, which never got a tithe of the audience it deserved.) Second, there’s the suspicion that this might be a “Bollywood” movie, where everyone sings and dances and such. Third, there isn’t a huge appreciation for Indian culture in this country as maybe there should be. (I love Indian food, but I have to put up with my dad teasing me about liking tandoori and naan bread. “Non-bread?” he says. “I’m not eating any non-bread. If it’s not bread, what is it?”) But this is irrelevant. If you liked the Greek family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you’ll like the Indian families in Bend It Like Beckham. (And given the audience that the former film got, that should be recommendation enough for the lot of you.)
- There aren’t any name-brand actors. True enough as far as it goes. Parminder K. Nagra has the lead role as Jes, and she’s not exactly what you would call a household name. Keira Knightley, playing the top player on Jes’s soccer team, is still a couple movies away from starlet-hood. There’s a crackerjack team of Indian and British actors backing them up, but none of them have done anything significant in America. (The big undiscovered talent, for my money, is Frank Harper as Knightley’s soccer-loving dad.)
None of this, though, is important, or that important. That Bend It Like Beckham is a hard sell in this country says a lot more about our taste, or lack thereof, than it does about the movie. And the movie is just fabulous, full of life and spirit and conflict and love.
Most, if not all American movies are about exceptionalism. (I am writing this in the time frame between the releases of X2 and The Matrix Reloaded, both hymns to exceptionalism.) Bend It Like Beckham is exceptional, but it is not about exceptionalism per se. It is, instead, about middle-class life and middle-class values and middle-class goals — chiefly that most elusive of goals: happiness.
Nagra plays Jes, an Indian teenager and certified tomboy who has to sneak out of the house to play soccer with the local girl’s team. She’s not playing in order to rebel against her parents, or to show society that she can, but because she’s good at it, she has fun, and it makes her happy. Her parents (Anupam Kher and Shaheen Khan) disapprove of her playing soccer — not because they’re overly strict or anything like that, but because they want her to be happy, and think that the way for her to be happy is to learn how to cook, and marry a nice Indian boy. (The climax of the movie is a huge, colorful Indian wedding involving Jes’s sister, played by Archie Panjabi.)
Bend It Like Beckham thrives on the idea that what makes children happy won’t necessarily make their parents happy. (This is portrayed in the Indian family as a conflict over tradition and culture, but is nicely counterpointed in Knightley’s ordinary British family. Fortunately, the result of all this striving for happiness is, as translated by writer-director Gurinder Chadha, is to make the audience very happy, as you will find shortly after you buy your ticket and take your seat.
I could say more. I probably should say more. But I won’t. All I will tell you here is what I’ve been telling everyone. Go see Bend It Like Beckham. Simple.