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Bend It Like Beckham

2002

Gurinder Chadha

Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anupam Kher ...

5.7

20,854

Comedy. Romance In west London, 18-year-old Jess Bharma dreams of playing professional football like her idol David Beckham, but her Punjabi Sikh parents have more conventional plans for her: a law degree and marriage. Jules, a blond tomboy, spots Jess playing football in the park and invites her to join the local team. Meanwhile, Jess is forced to help with the preparations for the wedding of her older sister, and is then banned from playing football ... [+]

	Media	Author	Review
		Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly	"The most exhilarating movie so far this year. It's made up of many familiar elements yet before long, you catch on to how buoyant and funny and original it is"
		Roger Ebert rogerebert.com	"[It] is good not because it is blindingly original but because it is flawless in executing what is, after all, a dependable formula (...) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)"
		Claudia Puig USA Today	"Beckham is a rare amalgam of funny, sweet, action-packed and inspiring (...) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)"
		Derek Elley Variety	"Gurinder Chadha assembles a gallery of broadly played stereotypes into a movie about social attitudes that's more rooted in small-screen sitcom than anything deeper"
		Rita Kempley The Washington Post	"You seldom leave a theater walking on air, much less float all through a movie. But the joyous Bend It Like Beckham never lets you down"
		Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"Gurinder Chadha juggles all the angles with flair and fairness. Like Nagra and Knightley, the movie is a sweetheart (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 4)"
		Mick LaSalle SFGATE	"Routine, genial sports movie."
		Peter Rainer New York Magazine	"Every generation has to discover the same clichés that were drummed into previous generations, and kids could do worse than to learn them from this film."
		A. O. Scott The New York Times	"If Ms. Chadha's direction were as compulsive as the writing, 'Bend It Like Beckham' might have been tighter, funnier and, above all, shorter."

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