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Today, 05 July 2008

Yesterday, 04 July 2008

» 2010 transport plan in trouble

» Smash, but no grab

» Not so unusual for Africa?

» End of the gap-year?

» 'Hakuna Motata!'

It’s contemporary London, UK, where your next door neighbours are as likely to be an Indian family caught between deeply entrenched cultural traditions and the outrageously ‘foreign’ behaviour of their British-born children, as a cardiganed, Earl Grey tea-sipping English couple.

Films like the hilarious ‘East is East’ (Damien O'Donnell, 1998) and poignant ‘My Son the Fanatic’ (Udayan Prasad, 1997) have captured beautifully the often highly amusing or, on the other side, confusing or tragic consequences of the clash between cultures in a London that is becoming as multi-hued as our own ‘Rainbow Nation’.

‘Bend it like Beckham’ is not quite as funny as ‘East is East’, which had audiences rolling in the aisles with mirth, though director Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Beckham’ certainly has its moments. It’s more like ‘Billy Elliot’ (Stephen Daldry, 2000) in that it focuses less on the actual issues of being an Indian in modern-day Britain than it does on the struggle of its main character to be allowed to do something that, in the circumstances of her culture, is simply not done.

In 'Billy Elliot', it was a young boy who, against the wishes of his father, wanted to be a ballet dancer. In ‘Bend it like Beckham’ — described as a comedy about bending the rules to reach your goals — it’s a young Indian girl, Jess (Parminder K. Nagra), a talented football player who wants to be as good as her hero, English footie star David Beckham.

Naturally, Jess’s parents think this is completely improper for a young Indian girl, who really should be thinking of things like marriage and learning how to cook traditional dishes so that, one day, she can be the perfect Indian wife and make them proud.

But Jess, at 18, is not at all interested in things like marriage, or boys, for that matter — except when it comes to kick-abouts with them in the local park. But her sister is due to get married, so suddenly Jess’s parents start frowning on her tomboy antics which, as a child, she always managed to get away with.

So now Jess has to play behind their backs, especially since she’s been invited to join an all-women football team and they’ve given her a stern ‘no’. She befriends fellow football player, Jules (Keira Knightly), who, in spite of her deliberate boyishness, has typical English Rose looks and whose family is the ultimate caricature of modern-day Englishness.

The two become inseperable, going on shopping sprees for football boots, borrowing clothes and all the other stuff teenage girls get up to… like falling in love with the same bloke. Of course, the man who steals both of their hearts is their too-good-looking-to-be-convincing coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), who — it has to be said — has this really irritating habit of manouvering his jaw in a way that’s meant to look sexy but ends up looking awful!

Naturally, there’s a fall-out when, on a trip to Hamburg to play a match (for which Jess has snuck away under the pretext that she’s staying with a cousin), the girls have a bit to drink and vie for Joe’s attention. All hell breaks loose on their return — they’re not talking to each other, but worse is the fact that Jess’s parents have discovered her deception and are waiting for her as the team’s bus pulls in back home…

The film has some truly brilliant moments and, overall, is extremely entertaining, whether you’re 18 or a soccer enthusiast or not. I fully agree with another critic who said that it’s impossible not to like ‘Bend it like Beckham’. And, in the context of the recent World Cup, it’s great to watch these gals give the sport all they’ve got after having watched countless teams ‘bending’ the ball on our TV screens for the last few weeks. Go see it!