BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM (2002)  **

Reviewed 3/17/03

A young Indian woman, Jess (Parminder K. Nagra) must overcome strict, traditional, conservative parents in order to play for a women’s soccer team in England.  It's pretty apparent what BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM is going in - slight, formulaic fluff - so once you adjust your standards to those expectations, it becomes almost but still not quite passable.  I have no inherent problem with formula if it’s done well, but the emotional through-line isn’t properly developed (the father needed more careful development and the mother never transcends shrill stereotype), and the movie telegraphs its jokes from miles away.  Those are either “Three’s Company”-style misunderstandings or pokes at how stupid people look or behave.  That the director, Gurinda Chadha, clearly has no idea of how to shoot a soccer game – the action is mostly shown in close-up so there’s no sense of strategy and then it’s all goal shots – makes the movie fail at getting Jess’s passion for it, if it doesn’t outright make you think soccer was chosen simply as a selling point.  Nagra’s strong performance holds it together for the most part even though she has absolutely no chemistry with the miscast Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, who plays her coach and love interest.