Nov. 04, 2003 - 8:04 pm

cover
Bend It Like Beckham (2002)

yeah, so it turns out Carly and i have very similar taste in movies and she very much approves of my Natalie Portman, et al. crushes. we own a lot of the same dvds. but she owns about 225% of the amount that i do. i'm only in the early 40s. she has over 100. but we started talking about her love for Bend It Like Beckham the other day, so i decided i needed to see it.

this film stars "Natalie look-alike" Keira Knightley as a supporting actress to a newcomer, Parminder Nagra. it's about a British girl of Indian heritage who rebels against her family in order to play for a youth girls' football (soccer) team. she repeatedly gets caught by her parents who have forbid her to play and there are a lot of other mixups that cause bad feelings between the otherwise very tightly-knit characters. this movie is all about strong love vs. the mental hangups that prevent people from doing the things that they really want. it's about how the ones we love can prevent us from being happy with our own lives. it's about independence and growing up.

i thought this film had a relatively strong cast and story. it also had a very good soundtrack to it. it's a fun movie really, but it didn't completely amaze me. i definitely think it's more of a girl's movie than a guy's movie. not that i can't appreciate girly things, but there are a lot of things about being a girl that i will never understand or completely identify with. it's just a difference of perspective and i have to fess up to it sometimes unfortunately.

in her defense, she really has excellent taste in movies, but here's another movie that Carly hates me for not liking as much as she does...Igby Goes Down (2002).