Neil Young's Film Lounge

Neil Young’s Film Lounge – Bend It Like Beckham

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM

5/10

UK 2002 : Gurinder Chadha : c100 mins

Its Chadhas stated aim to make accessible, commercial movies and there’s no doubting the calculating savvy behind Bend It Like Beckham. Mike Bassett and Mean Machine have shown that footy pictures are no longer box-office poison, and Chadha aims to attract the youth, female and Asian markets with her tale of talented teenage striker Jas (Parminder Nagra) who must overcome her respectable familys objections if she’s going to follow her chosen career.

Chadha also seems to have at least one eye on the America, where womens football has mushroomed in recent years. The films title name-checks arguably the worlds most famous and talented star, and the US represents, for Jas and her friends, the promised land where they can turn their skills to lucrative professional advantage. Theres clearly more than a little bit of autobiography to this angle, as Chadha herself left Britain to make Whats Cooking? in the States.

Like that movie, Bend It is an enjoyable, relentlessly upbeat, slightly old-fashioned picture which unobtrusively explores families, cultures and societies. Theres nothing wrong with Chadhas intentions or her conventional approach, and many audiences will have as good a time watching the film as the cast and crew seem to have had making it (they appear in a typically bouncy final sing-along montage). But, unlike, say, Gregorys Girl, there may not be too much here to detain viewers who fall outside the target demographic of teenage females.

Apart from some incidental shots of aeroplanes taking off overhead (Jass family live near an airport), their promise of escape recalling Rays use of trains in Pather Panchali, Bend It Like Beckham isnt much to look at. When Chadha tries anything out of the ordinary the results are clumsy, such as the opening dream-sequence in which Jas is digitally inserted into TV footage of a real Man United game. The strong points are the script and the cast the engaging Nagra is a real find, and she gets able support from Jonathan Rhys-Myers (a rare non-freakish role as Jass Irish coach), and the ultra-reliable terrific Frank Harper as her best pals bemused dad.

The title perhaps says it all: in cinematic terms, Chadhas much more interested in bending the rules of film-making than breaking them – but doesn’t this make Beckham a somewhat inappropriate reference point? His is a dazzling, inspirational, freakish talent Chadha, however, is solidly dependable, but shell probably never come up with anything especially exciting or memorable: a second-eleven Paul Scholes, perhaps.

9^th March 2002
(provisional version seen 27^th January, CineWorld Milton Keynes)

by Neil Young

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