Bend It Like Beckham

Parminder K. Nagra - Jess Bhamra
Keira Knightley - Jules
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers - Joe
Anupam Kher - Mr. Bhamra
Archie Panjabi - Pinky
Shaznay Lewis - Mel
Frank Harper - Alan
Juliet Stevenson - Paula

Writer-director Gurinder Chadha’s third film, Bend It Like Beckham, is an undemanding comedy that challenges the traditional formulaic football movie with this highly enjoyable story of a football-mad Asian teenager triumphing over adversity. Like here hero David Beckham, the films heroine is determined to bend, if not to break, the rules in her favour.

The traditional Indian parents of west London eighteen-year-old Jess Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) want her to concentrate her energies on studying, learning how to cook a perfect chapatti, and to marry a suitable young man, just like her soon-to-be-wed older sister Pinky (Panjabi). Jess however idolises David Beckham and dreams of playing football, and is invited by a fellow schoolgirl Jules (Keira Knightley) to come and join the local all-female team, the Hounslow Harriers. Jules' preference for football over dresses provokes real anxiety in her own brash mother Paula (Juliet Stevenson), who's alarmed by the pin-ups of butch American female football-players on her daughter's bedroom wall and insists that football is unfeminine. Jess seizes the opportunity to play football, playing every week behind her parent's back. The dashing Irish coach Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who both Jess and Jules fancy, reckons that they both have the talent to succeed in the game, and under his tutelage Jess blossoms into a star player. But Jess's disapproving parents (Shaheen Khan, Anupam Kher) ban their daughter from attending training when uncovering her deception Ultimately, an American university scout visits to watch a match in which Jess hopes to impress – but it coincides with her older sister's wedding day. Will she achieve her goal of a football scholarship to California?