Goal Standard
Amazing events in recent soccer history:
1999: The Women’s World Cup comes to America ... and a nation of NASCAR and baseball fans spends a summer month filling football stadiums to watch the ponytailed Yankees win it all.
2002: The men’s World Cup is played in Japan and South Korea ... and Americans who wouldn’t walk across the street to attend a Major League Soccer match are getting up at 4 in the morning to track the U.S. team’s progress into the tournament’s quarterfinals.
2003: “Bend It Like Beckham,” a British movie about a 17-year-old Indian girl chasing her soccer dream, attempts to go where no other soccer film has ever gone -- into the pocketbooks, if not the hearts and minds, of the American ticket-buying public.
Chances for success?
You have to like them, considering curious recent U.S. box-office habits and a feel-good script aimed directly at that same soft spot.
To put it another way: America, are you ready for “My Big Fat Free Kick?”
“Bend It Like Beckham,” which opened Wednesday in Los Angeles and New York, treads on very familiar territory, albeit in soccer studded boots. Let’s see: immigrant family trying to preserve old customs in a foreign land, daughter trying to find happiness in the face of overbearing, over-the-top parents, a culture-clash romance, broad ethnic stereotypes.
Anything missing?
Well, yes, there is -- Michael Constantine’s obsession with a bottle of blue Windex.
In its place: Parminder Nagra’s obsession with a red soccer jersey, bearing the name and number of her soccer hero and role model, Manchester United star David Beckham.
The movie’s title refers to Beckham’s ability to bend a free kick around a defensive wall, often into the upper corner of the opposition net. Nagra plays the lead role of Jess, a girl who idolizes Beckham and emulates him during pickup games in her English neighborhood, leaving the males in the group shaking their heads in astonished admiration.
From there, Jess is recruited to a local women’s team by the team’s top player, Jules; the Jules-and-Jess tandem
is an instant smash; an awkward love triangle develops between the team’s male Irish coach and his two star players; Jess’ parents disapprove of the soccer and the coach, and the rest of the film is devoted to Jess’ trying to deke her way around the many obstacles thrown in her path.
“Bend It” is already the most popular soccer-related movie in history, having grossed nearly $50 million before its U.S. debut. And with an eager-to-please plot, attractive young actors and a ready-made audience of soccer moms and AYSO kids, it should easily pad its lead in cineplexes across America.
But soccer continues to search for its “Raging Bull,” its “Eight Men Out,” its “The Longest Yard” -- even though it took to remaking “The Longest Yard” in the “Mean Machine,” with former English soccer defender/thug Vinnie Jones playing the Burt Reynolds role.
Part of the problem is the penalty kick. A shootout is a lousy way to decide a soccer match, a crapshoot that penalizes both the players and fans who winced and writhed together through regulation and overtime. But the penalty kick is very easy drama -- it’s tough to tug heartstrings with a cinematic exploration of the offside trap -- and filmmakers simply can’t seem to resist them.
“Victory” climaxed with a penalty kick. Sylvester Stallone, a Yank POW who’s all hands and has no clue about soccer, stops the big shot, taken by a member of the German national team. Incredibly, more than two decades after its release, “Victory” is still listed as a drama and not science fiction.
“A Shot at Glory,” featuring Robert Duvall as the manager of a small Scottish club, builds up to a loser-might-leave-town penalty kick. “The Van,” which follows the comic exploits of two hapless Irish food caterers during the 1990 World Cup, features grown men crying in their beer as the Irish team puts the fans back home through one penalty-kick wringer after another.
A 1971 German film carried the weighty title “The Goalkeeper’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick.” Glimpsing into the future of soccer movies and penalty kicks, the titular goalkeeper reacts as one might expect -- walking glumly off the field, wandering aimlessly through the city and, finally, killing someone.
“Bend It” also can’t help itself. Jess has to take a big penalty kick in a match against a German team. Anyone familiar with the history of England versus Germany and penalty kicks won’t be surprised by the outcome.
Jess also is handed a game-deciding free kick, her chance of a lifetime to bend it like Beckham. Cue the slow motion. Bring on the Soccer Ball Cam. Watch the goalkeeper’s eyes widen as the ball approaches its ultimate destination.
The U.S. women’s professional league, WUSA, has given “Bend It” its endorsement, which is not surprising, considering the endorsement “Bend It” gives WUSA. Watching
WUSA highlights on their English telly, Jess and Jules dream of one day taking the trip overseas themselves and making it in America.
“Bend It” arrives in U.S. theaters with the same aspirations, pushing many of the same buttons a big fat independent film punched last year.
Playing as it does to the crowd, “Bend It” figures to reach its goal without much trouble. Penalty kicks won’t be necessary.
