When Bend It Like Beckham came out in 2002, women’s football wasn’t a professional sport in the UK or Australia. But with Jesminder “Jess” Bhamra, the film’s inspiring central character, came hope for all women and girls dreaming of being the next big thing. More than 20 years on fans still celebrate what the film did for aspiring female footballers and British-Asian women. And, in the lead-up to this year’s Women’s World Cup, it acts as a gentle reminder that opportunities in women’s sport haven’t been, and still aren’t, always on par with those of men.
In a sleepy suburb of west London under Heathrow’s flight path, Jess (Parminder Nagra) can’t get enough of football. Having just undertaken her college entry exams to become a solicitor, her love of the game and room full of Beckham memorabilia displeases her parents to no end. “You don’t even want to learn how to cook dahl!” her mother says with despair.
It is not until Jules (Keira Knightley) recruits her for the local girls team, the Hounslow Harriers, that she begins to dream beyond playing football in the park. While their home lives couldn’t be more different, both of them have mothers who don’t respect their sport. Soon they are thick as thieves.
Jess’s sister Pinky (Archie Punjabi, now best known as the dry-witted Kalinda Sharma on The Good Wife) is newly engaged and in a perpetual state of stress about having the perfect Indian wedding – an affair that quickly takes over the Bhamra household. And Jules has a hovering, glamazon mum (played by an annoying and brilliant Juliet Stevenson) who is preoccupied with her daughter’s life choices. “There’s a reason why Sporty Spice is the only one of them without a fella,” she says.
The girls’ champion is their coach Joe (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who falls in love with Jess’s potential and passion, and does everything a good sport coach should do: challenges, nurtures and rallies behind his players.
As Jess takes flight, chances are snatched away from her, which comes as a real kick in the guts. This is where Nagra, then a newcomer to the silver screen, comes into her own: acting with the ease and sincerity of a seasoned professional; lovable, funny, acutely vulnerable – and yet so determined.
Knightley, too – just 17 during the filming – is confident and eager as go-getter Jules (even if the actor is a little awkward at times); just a year later she was a Hollywood darling, appearing in Pirates of the Caribbean and Love Actually.
Alongside the splendour of Indian weddings and Indian feasts, the film’s cultural references are deep and genuine. Set to a much-celebrated Punjabi soundtrack, with early 2000s hits and Spice Girls tracks, the music transports you into the culture clash that plays out on screen. Will Jess choose her family or football? Will she be able to defy cultural norms and fall in love with an Irishman? Can her father put aside the anti-Indian discrimination he faced at a cricket club and encourage his daughter to pursue her talents?
In one of the film’s pivotal matches, Jess imagines her family blocking the goalposts and wringing their hands. Dressed in their wedding saris on the pitch, the mirage is so comical and, for a second, so believable, that it is hard to imagine how Jess maintains her focus to take aim at the ball.
It is these moments of humour that make this unassuming little film shine. Jess’s love for her family and for the game must coexist, no matter how much they threaten to tear each other apart. In the end, she proves you can master aloo gobi and bend a ball like Beckham.
