History has been very kind to the film Bend It Like Beckham, the 2002 teen sports movie with an ethnic twist by British-Asian veteran director Gurinder Chadha. It’s the story of a young Punjabi Sikh woman living in the London suburb of Hounslow and, instead of cleaving to the expected path of arranged marriage, kids and some kind of gender-aligned occupation, she strikes out by secretly joining local women’s football team, the Hounslow Harriers. As Jesminder “Jess” Bhamra, actor Parminder Nagra channels a righteous anger in response to her dearth of life choices and personal independence, and she’s drawn into this tradition-defying world by Keira Knightley’s gawky Jules, who is herself being hectored by her mother for rejecting conservative feminine ideals of womanhood. Here, as the film has just passed its 20th birthday, three writers pick over the impact – cinematic, political, sociological – of the little British film that could.
