Nobody I know in real life has even seen this film. Yet everybody online seems to rave about it. Is there any reason for the discrepancy? Or do I frequent odd circles? 
My sister played soccer in high school, so I got the DVD for her as a Christmas gift. She tricked me into watching it because Keira Knightley is in it. Knightley was only like, 16, when it was filmed, so she seems like a little kid compared to PotC. That’s the only thing I can remember.
We just watched it last night! I liked it.
I saw it in the theater and it was a good time. There seem to be a lot of musical montages, but it was very entertaining, overall.
I saw it. But then again, I’m online. Have you ever considered that maybe online is just a weird alternate world where everyone has seen Bend It Like Beckham, but in the real world, the movie never really exisited…
I watched it about three months ago since it was on satellite and my cousin (who I was living with at the time) had unlimited access. I probably never would have watched it if it weren’t for seeing all the reviews online though.
I saw it, but in real life, not online. 
Actually, I saw it on a flight from England to the USA. I found it funny and inspirational, especially as my young daughter is a very determined soccer player. It’s wonderful that the world is changing so that girls my daughter’s age can have their own heroes and aspire to things that weren’t even dreamt of when I was a kid. That and my wife is from an Asian family so a lot of it struck home. We watched it again as a family on DVD and my daughter and wife really enjoyed the film, too.
I saw it when it came out in the theaters, because I’m a huge fan of women’s soccer. I found there to be far too little actual soccer and far too much standard cutsy romantic comedy fare, but it was all right.
I heard about it from the ads on TV during soccer games, and from people who’d seen it in England. I admit I’m an online freak, but I didn’t hear about it online.
I saw it in theatres with a friend. Its’ a cute little movie, though the ending is a little too easy for me.
Keira was only 16 in that movie? Darn, now I feel sketchy. I only went to see it for her after seeing “Pirates.”
and its not too bad. You can pretty much guess what is going to happen, but it is still entertaining
Well it’s a chick flick, about Brits, Indian Brits, and soccer. Not a single car exploding. It won’t sell in the US.
I saw it last summer and then convinced several of mty friends to go see it. I loved the Indian clothing and the rest of the movie as well.
I’ve seen it. It was sort of my story, except I’m a dude, and was never any good at football. Thus, I liked it.
Watch the “Aloo Gobi” feature on the DVD- v. funny.
I think part of the reason few USA types were all that interested is they have no idea what “Bend it like Beckham” could be referring to. Yanks, in general, don’t much care about football/soccer at the pro level, and I know many folks personally who don’t really know who David Beckham is, even with all the buzz about metrosexuals. It’s sort of astonishing, as Beckham may be the most famous athelete in the world, currently.
Having said all that, perhaps another reason so many folks may not have seen the flick is because, well, it’s not all that good. I have seen it, and found it terribly trite and predictable. I just couldn’t get over the sense that I had watched some permutation of this film at least half-a-dozen times before, and somebody on the scriptwriting comittee must have decided this time around to throw in something “ethnic” to increase interest. And frankly, I’ve seen Nike commercials that got me more enthused about women in sports; plus, the “old-country-mores-vs.-western-liberation” thing is just as conceited a premise today as it was when Satyajit Ray first started producing the necessary antidote, namely dignified, incisive critiques of the complexity of old and new Indian culture (go rent Devi some time). “Beckham”, sadly, doesn’t even rise above the level of a “Mississippi Masala”.
The title is rather unfortunate – in the US the name is meaningless, and in the rest of the world many people wrongly assumed it was some sort of Beckham biopic.
First of all, the OP and friends aside, I think a lot of folks have seen Bend it Like Beckham. Isn’t it now the highest grossing British film of all time or something? It certainly did very well in theaters around the world. It wasn’t a partcularly big hit in the US, but I’m looking at the box office info on the IMDB right now and it was no Gigli either.
I agree that BiLB was a formula film, but for me it was an example of a movie putting a formula to good use. I mean, it’s easy to predict that The Big Game will fall on the same day as the Long-Awaited Important Family Event, that the heroine and her bestfriend will have an Unfortunate Misunderstanding, that there will be a scene in which the heroine Feigns Illness when her family is going out so she’ll be free to sneak off, etc. But formulas come to exist because the blueprint is proven to there were a few twists, an admirable avoidance of some of the more annoying cliches of the genre, and a talented ensemble cast.
Of course it didn’t provide an incisive critique of the complexity of old and new Indian culture – it was a summer sports comedy! If you went in expecting the movie to be something other than what it was, no wonder you were disappointed. Maybe it wouldn’t be to your tastes anyway, but I think as such films go BiLB was reasonably clever and sensitive as well as pleasant and entertaining.
I do think you’re wrong in calling it an “old-country-mores-vs.-western-liberation” movie though, because the Western/Westernized characters were not portrayed as being particularly liberated. They were clearly just as bound to their own set of social norms as the traditional Indian ones, and the similarities between the two were played up as much as the differences: the Indian mother wants her daughter to wear a tight sari blouse and get married, while the English mother wants her daughter to wear a push-up bra and go on dates.
I was lucky. I saw it when it first came out at a weekend matinee and there were lots of teenage Indian girls in the audience. They enjoyed it so much, including laughing at things said in Indian and the elder relatives attitudes, that it enhanced the movie a lot.
You are certainly right here. It is obvious that neither girl’s family is keen on the soccer. In fact here is what Gurinder Chadha had to say :
[Eddie Izzard]Bend it Like Beckham’s IN HELL! The Soccer Balls of Doom.
You’re always in here with the frickin’ beans and the frickin’ toast. Frickin’ toast. Oh no, space monkeys are challenging us to a game of soccer for the fate of Earth![/EI]
My favorite quote from the movie: Get your lesbian feet out of my shoes! Makes me laugh everytime I think of it.
We bought it on DVD, having never seen it, because we’re fans of (1) Parminder Nagra from her role on ER and (2) Indian food and clothing (I own three salwar kameez and two saris). Loved it! Another vote for the Aloo Gobi extra – I loved watching the give-and-take between the director and her relatives, and the food looks delicious!
Saw it at the theatre. Enjoyed it. It came out on the tails of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” so it could have been called “My Big Fat Sikh Wedding”