Bend It Like Beckham
A young footballer negotiates family expectations, friendship and ambition while the pitch becomes a social space as important as the match.
- YEAR
- 2002
- DIRECTOR
- Gurinder Chadha
- COUNTRY
- United Kingdom
- LENGTH
- 112 min
- SPORT / THEME
- Football · Fiction
- CAST / FEATURED PEOPLE
- Parminder Nagra · Keira Knightley · Jonathan Rhys Meyers · Anupam Kher
Bend It Like Beckham in the wider sports-film conversation
Bend It Like Beckham is worth viewing not only as a self-contained story but as part of a wider conversation about how sport is represented on screen. The film widened the sports-film frame by treating community, migration, gender and belonging as part of football’s everyday cinematic reality.
Continue through Football, Gurinder Chadha, 2002 and United Kingdom. For a closer reading, see Bend It Like Beckham Community Field.
Synopsis
A young footballer negotiates family expectations, friendship and ambition while the pitch becomes a social space as important as the match.
Place in film history
The film widened the sports-film frame by treating community, migration, gender and belonging as part of football’s everyday cinematic reality.