A review of Gurinda Chadha’s ‘Bend it like Beckham’

Bend it Like Beckham

A coming-of-age comedy with hidden depths.

Just like her other films Blinded by the Light and It’s a Wonderful Afterlife, Gurinda Chadha takes all the best aspects of a coming-of-age comedy, and uses them to help bridge the diversity between British and Indian cultures in this heart-warming, football-themed comedy.

We’re all familiar with the genre’s iconography; misunderstood teenagers, quirky parents, first love and  unlikely friendships, but Chadha is known for expertly using these to highlight the plight of Asian families living in the UK, and, more specifically, the struggles that British-Asian children face when trying to fit into society, and at the same time live up to their families’ expectations and values. Bend it Like Beckham does this flawlessly. As well as exploring issues of racism, feminism, and religion, the film also touches of the subject of sexuality, specifically the prejudice that men and women face from their own traditional families when coming out as gay.

The film centres around English-born Indian teenager Jess Bhamra, who desperately wants to become a professional football player, a goal she has to hide from her very traditional parents, who are determined that she focus on finding an Indian boy to marry – like her older sister Pinky – and learn how to cook a full Indian meal. Jess is introduced to Jules when she spots Jess playing football in the park with the boys, and persuades her to try out for the local girls’ football team. It’s the beginning of a beautiful friendship, and provides the perfect opportunity for Chadha to inject the comedy that she is so well known for, in this case, through the medium of Jules’s well-meaning, though ultimately ignorant middle-class mother, Paula, who infamously said, “You know, Jesminder, I made a lovely curry the other day.”

In a homage to her own family, Chadha uses Jess’s mother to light-heartedly poke fun at the pressure Indian mothers put on their daughters to focus on becoming the perfect wife and daughter-in-law, rather than to pursue their own career, especially if that career is in sports. It is Mrs Bhamra who delivers the famous line, “What family would want a daughter-in-law who can run around kicking football all day but can’t make round chapatis?”, to which Jess replies, “Anyone can cook aloo gobi, but who can bend a ball like Beckham?”.

Although ultimately a comedy, the film does highlight some serious issues that British-Asian women in particular face, and that Chadha herself experienced growing up. Bend it Like Beckham, as with Blinded by the Light, helps to promote tolerance and understanding, as well as entertain it’s audience with witty dialogue and relatable characters. It is for these reasons that the film, now almost two decades old, has managed to stand the test of time, and remains as relevant today as it was the day it was released.

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