Bend It Like Beckham is a thorougly entertaining movie about Jess, a girl who just wants to play football while her parents want her to be a traditional Indian girl and marry a nice Indian boy. While playing football in the park with her guy friends, Jess is approached by Juliet, a caucasian girl who plays for a girl's team and thinks Jess would be a good addition. This sets up the familiar plot where young child tries to follow her dream, gets in trouble with the parents, before a successful conclusion of all the plot threads.

Although there's nothing new in the plot of this story, it's the ethnographic details and the extreme likability of the actors that makes this film a joy to watch. Aside from the obvious gender-switching (girl playing sports), the setting (London) and the family (traditional Indian), there's a number of small touches that raise the movie above what could have been simplistic Disney fare, such as Juliet and her not-quite-similar situation where her father supports her while her mother doesn't and the young Irish male coach with another dissimilar home situation in which the father supported him too much. It's as if you get a cross-section of the possibilities of parent-child relationship, to compare and contrast and realize that for all their differences, it still comes down to the need for the child to make his or her own way in the world.

Like another ethnic take on a traditional theme, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Bend It Like Beckham succeeds because it reveals that while the food, dress, or customs may be different, parents are parents and children are children. It also provides an amusing glimpse into that other culture and helps us all realize that, underneath it all, we have the same concerns as each other.