Starring: Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightly, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Anupam Kher, Archie Punjabi, Shaheen Khan and Juliet Stevenson Football Choreography: Simon Clifford Screenplay:Paul Mayeda, Berges, Guljit Bindra, Gurinder Chadha Production Design: Nick Ellisi Art Direction: Mark Scruton Costumes: Ralph Holes Editing: Justin Krish Cinematography:Jong Lin Original Music: Craig Pruess Produced by: Deepak Nayar Directed by: Gurinder Chadha

I suppose you've already seen Devdas. The spectacular film that by the end of it, makes a spectacle of itself. So refined, so grand, so… boring. We watched it too of course, but we also watched the simultaneously-released Bend It Like Beckham and the experience was a study in contradictions. Low-budget, typical Brit-school-of-filmmaking but a wonderfully heart-warming and engaging story of a Sikh girl Jess Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) who bends a ball like Beckham and dreams of making it big in international football… a film far superior simply because at the end of it you leave happy and contended and are not tempted to think about whose face your popcorn resembles.

Anyway, Bend It Like Beckham is Gurinder Chada's third film and one that we'd been eagerly awaiting given her work with Bhaji on the Beach and What's Cooking? Good films but not exactly the sort that brought the IRS to her door. This time, however, she might not be so lucky. With a deft title like that and a release around the time of the World Cup Finals, one suspects that everyone will try and glimpse this one.

The interesting thing is - there is hardly any plot in the film. It's more like a representation of a slice of life of second-gen Indian kids in the UK (who by the way, according to the film, are not very different from their parents - "Marry a gora? Are you crazy?" says Jess' sister.) This leads to a plethora of clichés and also some unrealistic happenings that take away from an otherwise honest-to-life portrayal of a life of an NRI kid who has to carry the weight of Indian traditions on her shoulders while entertaining not-so-Indian ideas in her head. The father's expected turn around of ideologies in the last scene, the coaches visit home, the ambition-comes-before-love theme, the constant repetitions of the I am gay, you are lesbian admissions and accusations, are some of the overplayed and expected triggers for influencing audience reactions. But what Chadda is doing here is representing Southall as it is - with the promiscuous sister making out in a mini in the airport parking lot, the Hounslow Harriers, and even gori mother's getting lessons in the offside rule (see, its not only your mom.)

In the first half, the story has a strange, bumpy graph that swings from a high to a low to a high to a point that's lower than the earlier low and this keep going, until you cannot think of anything worse that could happen to Jess (on whose side you are obviously) but eventually it does. Technically too, production is shoddy and amateur and enough indie films have proved that low budgets do not mean you make a bad looking film. One really misses true excitement on the football field during the matches - something that is so easily achieved in other sport's films. Even the montages are not very well edited. In one scene showing a time lapse from afternoon to evening, there is an aircraft clearly visible in the sky. But what happens in the second half is what makes the film outstanding. Chadda deftly ties up all loose ends, takes the clichés and tosses them around and makes them work to her advantage as she springs a few surprises (the final kiss at the airport was never supposed to happen!) and at the end of it, you cannot but help feel that you would like to watch the film again sometime soon.

Of the performances - Anupam Kher as the father is a little too restrained and seems slightly uncomfortable with the turban. Shaheen Khan, who plays the narrow-minded mother whose sole intent is to see her daughter make Aloo Gobi successfully, is stereotypical in her approach. The Irish football coach Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is unexpectedly good (coaches can be clichéd) but the winners of the Best Actor award are the twosome Parminder Nagra and the Winona Ryder look-alike Keira Knightly (the latter mostly because she does look like Winona Ryder). Nagra on the other hand interprets the scripts very well - a tough role, well played - at no point does she rebel against her parent. She accepts what they say, and eventually it's her tenaciousness that wins them over. Another highlight is the expression on her face as she just misses kissing the coach when they are out clubbing in Germany.

Also worth mentioning is the soundtrack - a complete gamut from a well-stocked music store, and well compiled and executed. The right background music in the right scene can make such a difference!

All said and done, it isn't a surprise that Bend It Like Beckham has already become the second highest grossing British film in the UK, but you can't take away the fact that at the end of it, it is a wonderful film because everything works out for everybody. (Except for the Winona Ryder look-alike who doesn't get her man, but I don't think it'd bother her much because she does look like Winona Ryder and, well, men would be easy to come by.)

Anyway, stop wasting your time reading this if you haven't watched it already. And don't miss the end credits for the world. Gurinder really planned this well.