Bend it like Beckham

hier ist ne ganz brauchbare summary:

The film is a coming-of-age tale about 18-year-old Jesminder "Jess" Bhamra (Parminder Nagra), a Sikh girl living in the western suburbs of London, not far from Heathrow Airport. Her father is an Indian immigrant from Uganda. Both of her parents are first-generation Punjabi immigrants in Britain. Because Jess is the more studious daughter, they push her towards academic achievement in the hope that she will achieve the financial success that they could not. Their goal is for her to attend university and become a solicitor. As was the custom, they also planned to arrange a marriage for her in due course. Jess, on the other hand, dreams of becoming a professional football player, inspired by one of England`s most famous players, David Beckham. She displays unusual talent for the game in park matches with the local boys, running them ragged with her evasive skills. She confides her dreams to a poster of Beckham which hangs in her room. These "conversations" are contrasted in the film with her parent`s show of veneration to a poster of The Sikh holy man (babaji) Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

While playing in the park Jess is spotted by Juliette "Jules" Paxton (Keira Knightley), the star player at the Hounslow Harriers, a local amateur women`s football club. She happily accepts Jules`s invitation to join the club, even though she knows her parents would disapprove. Jess becomes a key member of the side and Jules`s best friend. She also develops a special bond with the team`s coach, Joe (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), a young man whose dreams of football stardom were shattered when he injured his knee. Meanwhile, there are rumours that a scout from an American college is looking for players for the school`s women`s team. The resulting situation sets up a number of culture clashes ranging from the comical to the serious, as Jess, her friends (both from the Indian community and the football club), and family, try to negotiate their way between the expectations of two cultures and their own dreams and desires.

The movie also shows that immigrant families are not unique in their adherence to tradition. Jules`s mother (Juliet Stevenson), who has very conventional views of femininity, pressures her daughter to wear frilly lingerie rather than sports bras and fears that her tomboy daughter is in a lesbian relationship with Jess. Instead of the standard plot device of the unyielding father and the understanding mother, the roles are reversed with the father having the wisdom to let his daughter fulfill her dreams and the mother clinging to her ideas and traditions. In Jess`s case, her father (Anupam Kher) decides to let her play in the football tournament even when it means leaving her sister`s wedding early. In Jules`s case, her father encourages her to play football instead of chasing boys and doing normal "girl things".

When he realises she has sneaked out to play football, Jess`s father takes ten minutes to watch Jess in her game and sees just how good she really is. He is surprised to find her a fantastic player and a key member of the team, but he is not as impressed when he finds her hugging her coach. During the wedding party, Jess`s father allows her to go to the final football match, saying it would be the only way to see her happy on her sister`s wedding day - her joy of playing is contrasted with her sister`s joy of getting married, in a montage.

The American scout sees Jess and Jules at the game and offers them a place at a college in the USA with a well known and successful women`s soccer program (Santa Clara University). Jules accepts straight away, but Jess does not as she knows her parents would never let her. She returns to the wedding party (which was just finishing) and tells her best Indian friend - Tony (a gay man who is infatuated with David Beckham) what has happened. Tony sees how much Jess wants to take up this opportunity, so he tells Jess`s parents that he and Jess want to get married but he wants her to have a chance to go to the college of her choice first (i.e. the college in America to which she has been offered admission). Jess realises that she cannot let Tony make such a sacrifice for her, and she also wishes to stop deceiving her family, so she speaks up and asks permission to go to America.

Her father grants her permission to go, as during his youth in England he wanted to play cricket but he was unable to because the English men who were at the club he wished to play at made fun of the turban he wore and `kicked him out like a dog`. He realises that Jess really wants to take up this opportunity and gives a speech in front of the relatives and friends there about how he was discriminated against and how he wants Jess to take up the opportunity he never had. Consequently Jess goes to America. The film concludes with family and friends assembled at the airport to bid Jess and Jules farewell. Jess and Joe, who throughout the film found themselves attracted to the other despite the restrictions of family and his position, kiss and decide to tell Jess` parents of the relationship when she comes back at Christmas. The credits roll with Joe and Jess`s father playing cricket.