 Bend it like Beckham challenges preconceptions
Director: Gurinder Chadha
Cast: Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kulvinder Ghir, Shaznay Lewis, Juliet Stevenson
Length: 120 minutes
Release date: 12 April 2002
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 Dreaming of David Beckham....
| | Teenage Jess (Nagra) doesn't want to end up as a boring solicitor. She wants to play football like her hero, David Beckham.
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 | | Reviewed by Jamie Russell
But being a girl, her chances are limited to having a kick about in the local park and being an Asian girl, her family don't even agree with her doing that. As her mum says: "Who'd want a girl who plays football all day but can't make chapattis?"
If they knew she was playing with the Hounslow Harriers women's team, they'd have a collective fit.
 The only fault is that it runs on too long, if the ref had blown her whistle earlier, it would have been absolutely perfect.
 | 听 | Jamie Russell, reviewer
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Following on from the success of her earlier comedies Bhaji on the Beach and What's Cooking?, Gurinder Chadha turns this British-Asian film about a clash between traditional values and the modern world into a fantastic feel-good movie.
Chock full of wonderful characters - Jess' long-suffering mother, her slapper sister, and her fellow teammates - Beckham is a real crowd pleaser.
Although it's set up as an Asian comedy in the East is East mould, it's also a great football movie, with some hilariously surreal on-pitch moments.
Like when she's readying herself for a vital free-kick, Jess watches aghast as the wall of defenders transforms into a line of sari-wearing relatives, all desperately trying to put her off.
| 听 |  | Bending it like Beckham
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It's sweet without ever becoming schmaltzy and finishes by tying up every loose end.
But since it's the kind of film that'll have the whole audience clapping by the time the credit sequence outtakes appear, it's easy to forgive that minor fault.
Mr Beckham ought to be proud to have his name on such a great film.
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