Bend It Like Beckham
Sunday, March 21st, 2004
This is a wonderful movie: Indian culture in London, soccer, cute girls, quirky British characters, uplifting screenplay, coming of age… what could be bad?
Director: Gurinder Chadha
Cast: Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley
Bend It Like Beckham Web Site
Bend It Like Beckham at Amazon
We knew a lot of Sikhs out west too. In New Mexico they owned the cab companies and the night watchman companies, which I guess made sense. I also wonder what happens to caste system divisions over time in new environments. It seems like the Sikhs are a rather exclusive group…but kids are going to want to interact with the environment that they are in and most of them aren’t going to put up with being less free than other kids.
I sort of agree but I think the coach thing had another angle that intersected the cross cultural piece: it was less “natural” for the Indian girl to get involved with the coach than even the black girls because Indians are more recent imigrants. So, she was the only Indian on the team, with a burn and maybe more family baggage and the coach is more out of bounds.
What I want to know is which airline the dad worked for and what he did? Sikhs were the warrior class in India and I wonder what the legacy of that is in the UK. In the US, there is a large, converted Sikh population and I knew many in Eugene, Oregon.
Hey –
I really liked Bend it like Beckam too. I thought it was good fun and sort of quirky and charming. I sort of wish they’d left out or at least downplayed the whole relationship with the coach thing. I thought the more interesting story was the intersection of cultures and her relationship with family and friends and her growing identity in the world…But I guess nobody feels they can make a movie without a romantic storyline…b/c…everything is about sex and relationships right? hmp.