Bend It Like Beckham

By EWAN McDONALD

(Herald rating: * * * )

It's been a funny old season -- several early losses, the Roy Keane soap opera, David Beckham being injured -- but the New Year opens with Manchester United not far off the pace for the English title, on course for more success in Europe, Roy and David on the pitch again. And that time off has some benefits: David's had time to grow a new hairdo.

Several hundred kilometres south of Old Trafford, in West London, Jess Bhamra (Parminder Nagra) is a bright 18-year-old schoolgirl who dreams of playing soccer alongside Becks at Man U. (That's football talk. So is "bend it like Beckham" -- it means the way he can curve a football around a wall of defenders).

Because this movie is made by Gurinder Chadha, who directed Bhaji On The Beach and What's Cooking?, you know it will be a feelgood comedy about ethnic differences and the clash of modern and traditional life.

So it turns out that Jess' parents are Sikhs from East Africa who are trying to hold on to the old ways in their semi-detached home under the flight path to Heathrow, where Dad works, and that they will think that soccer is not a girl's game. Especially not their girl.

And when, thanks to Jules (Keira Knightley), Jess gets a trial with the all-girl Hounslow Harriers, she has to keep it secret. When she's selected, she has to sneak out of the house to play. When she's depressed she goes off her game.

The big game, to be watched by a scout for an American university, clashes with her sister's wedding. Will Jess give up the idea of becoming a lawyer in Britain to take up a football scholarship in California? Will everyone come around to appreciating everyone else's religion, tastes and dreams?

Of course they will: this is Billy Elliot meets Match Of The Day. Still, even if it's not a great step forward in cross-cultural understanding, there are plenty of chuckles in a good evening's entertainment.

And at the annual Fifa awards, Parminder Nagra rubs shoulders with Ronaldo and Zinedine Zidane when she's given the world body's greatest honour for her performance in this movie. In World Cup year? It's been a funny old season.

* DVD features: movie (113min); commentary with director and co-writer; behind-the-scenes; deleted scenes; Gurinder's Indian Kitchen -- director cooks; music video; trailers.