infinite improbability

Bend it Like Beckham

This weekend I went to see Bend it Like Beckham. I'd already seen it once and liked it, and watching it a second time, it's definitely on my list of movies that I highly recommend. Briefly, it's the story of a British Indian girl who wants to play football (aka. soccer) and be like David Beckham, but who has to fight against her family who doesn't approve of her playing on an organized team. The movie also deals with the challenges of trying to fit in with the dominant culture while retaining your own cultural and ethnic distinctiveness. Because it is a sports-themed movie, there are quite a few soccer sequences, though my dad who used to play and coach soccer wasn't particularly impressed with the soccer scenes.

I don't know whether the movie will make it to all of the US--it's been out for quite a while, my brother saw it in Thailand in December, but it didn't make it to my area till the beginning of the summer, and then I had to drive to the more artsy Sarasota to see it--it only just made it to the theater here. Whether or not it will make it to Chattavegas is another matter all together. I suppose that this is my chance to gloat that I live in a cosmopolitan area that not only has an art-house theater but it has it's own independent film festival, so I actually have a chance to see foreign films before a lot of the country does (if they even make it to the rest of the country).