Bend it Like Beckham
- Details
- Written by T. Rake
The underpinnings of the “comedy” genre include those moments of laughter that makes the lesser scenes you wade through seemingly forgivable. Like the scene in Animal House where Flounder says the immortal words, “I’d like 10,000 marbles, please.” Even if the rest of the film was completely unfunny that one moment makes us laugh and, thus, strongly binds it to the comedic tradition of making people laugh. This small detail escaped the attention of the writers, director, producers, actors, editors and nameless others during the creation of ‘Bend It’.
I lived in England when this movie hit the theaters in 2002. The media saturation was formidable, replete with quips on the TV news, posters, ads, and benign banter at parties. I chalked most of it up to ‘Beckhamania’ that was raging across a then ‘pre-Real Madrid’ UK. How else could you explain a film named after him where he appears in a scant 20 seconds of blurry airport footage?
Watching it in 2008 on a recommendation of a friend, I found it an inexcusable parade of clichés with stereotyped characters punctuated by a relentless soundtrack. Most lamentably, you see the ending like a slow freight train across an absolutely flat landscape—and not in an arty Jarmuschian kinda way. Maybe I was expecting too much from a Comedy / Drama / Romance / Sports film for pre-teen girls that is playing such a wide spread.
The story in a nutshell: ‘Bend It’ follows the uphill struggle of tom boy footballer [the football with a round ball] ‘Jess’ who is besieged with woes as her orthodox Sikh family is trying to get her in line for a hubby, kids and the ennui of wifedom now that her older sister is getting married off.
The film then quickly degrades into a full-on “Three’s Company” sit com when her parents fear she has caught “the gay” from running around on a football pitch all day with other girls. Then, an Irish football coach is trotted out as Jess’ first true love. As a ‘Mick’ he’s able to relate to how she feels as a female Pakistani in class-laden Britain (a nuance that might escape US viewers: a Mick is on the bottom of the bird cage for Anglophiles). He inspires her to rail against the system and follow her dreams.
The gayness culminates at the wedding where her best friend’s mom also thinks she been gay with her footballer daughter and arrives to wreak havoc as the newly weds attempt the ceremonial limo departure. If only Mr. Roper had walked into that scene with a plunger and rescued it with a pithy remark like “Get your lesbian feet out of my shoes!” But, unfortunately, that’s what the scriptwriters thought her friend’s mom should say to Jess.
‘Bend it’ is decidedly a “Girl Power” coming of age film (after all Beckham was married to Posh Spice), but it finds Jess temporarily relenting to her family’s demands to abandon her dreams and go to her sister’s wedding on the very day that there is a career-making football match with a real talent scout from the USA on the sidelines. But, at the last minute, her father lets her miss a bit of the wedding to go play the last half of the football match. This is where the writers are showing us how she “Bends” her family life and makes that magical shot. It’s not a selfish girl power that rejects the family at all others’ peril.
Ultimately, she follows her heart and her dreams and gets her man, her football career with her best mate (who no longer hates her for stealing the aforementioned Irish football coach from her!) and—wait for it—gets to go to America where everything is perfect. See, she can “bend it” her own way.
Parminder Nagra is great as Jess, never crossing that fragile line into After School Special Land that is nearly palpable at times. By contrast, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the Irish soccer coach, takes a page form the Matt Damon/Ben Stiller playbook of ‘non-acting as acting.’ I guess we should be thankful he’s not a Guinness-drinking, river dancin’ stereotype with a thick brogue.
Slice of life movies are tricky—witness Sideways. And, I freely admit that I’m not the target audience for this film. But where they succeed is when they bring us willingly into the life we are asked to explore like Harold and Maude or even Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle. Maybe folks just flock to hear tales of “regular people” who stick to their ideals and are richly rewarded for their travails.
In the late 80s when I was in high school, Top Gun, Roadhouse and Cocktail were huge blockbusters in the U.S. and watching them today (and I have re-watched them recently) they seem like they were made by bored studio execs with too time on their hands and a bounty of cocaine on their coffee tables.
For me, ‘Bend It’ represents the worst kind of lazy stereotyping and poor writing. It is tiresome and obvious and, while there are some parts of the film that are well done, I would advise skipping this “sweet sports comedy with plenty of heart” unless you’re an aspiring female footballer in love with your Irish football or soccer coach.