You see Jessminder sitting in a football stand while the other players are practicing their skills. Joe spots her and tells Jules to take over the warm up and goes over to Jess.
Joe climbs over the railing and sits by Jess and he spots the problem as the camera moves to a scar on Jessminders right leg. The camera then moves to show both Joe and Jess and moves slightly when each actor speaks. Through Jess’ dialogue the actor speaks in a melancholy tone, which I think is filled with regret and is very well put across to bring emotion to the scene. Joe speaks in an empathetic tone as he shows Jess his scar this also brings emotion and feeling between the two characters as it helps to show a bond building between them, which is backed up by their body language which is effective because it helps the audience to read between the lines and understand that this is quite a pivotal scene.
Their dialects are very different as Jessminder is from Hounslow so she has a very typical London accent but is quite soft whereas Joe is from Ireland so his dialect is very Irish.
The camera angle is sharp and mainly shows the actors talking and only moves slightly when each actor talks and to show the scars on their legs.
In the end Jess makes a joke about her scar which I think should have been thought over more carefully because even though it lightens up a very emotionally heavy scene it could also be offensive to people who have been scared in the same way; even though it isn’t meant to be offensive.
In the end the camera follows the two of them to the pitch and that is the end of the scene.
The rest of the story line follows on with the preparations for Binky and Teetu’s wedding which I think does get a bit monotonous as it goes over the same things and Jess playing football and lying to her parents about it. Finally a date for Binky and Teetu’s is set and it’s the same date as the final football match.
On the day of the wedding the focus is switched between the wedding and the football match which I think represents Jessminders mind is split between the football match she wants to play in and the wedding she knows she has to be at so her heart and mind is torn between the two.
This is the second scene I will analyse.
You see the ‘reception’ after the wedding and the first thing that hits you is the bright coloured clothing, which you would expect in a tradition Indian wedding which brings authenticity to the film. There is no dialogue in this first part of the scene so all you hear is the band, which is an Indian band, and there is a contrast between the music, which is happy, lively and vibrant, and Jessminder who is upset about missing her football match. Her friend Tony takes jess’ arm and pulls her out the door and the camera follows them to a corridor outside the main hall where it focus’ on them. You can just hear the music and the festivities in the background; the camera doesn’t move until Jessminders dad walks up to them. The camera then moves back to a wide-angle shot to fit all three actors into the picture. Jess’ dad speaks with concern, which is good but is not shown enough and this leads to it being hard to believe that this actor is playing her dad. In this scene the lighting is poor and I think there could have been much more done to make this scene a bit more effective. The rest of the story follows on with Jessminders football career which I think should have been shown more because the whole film was taken up by Binky and Teetu’s wedding preparations and Jessminder lying to her parents and a little bit of football which was not enough.
I would recommend this film because it’s a light drama/comedy that you would watch after a Sunday meal but personally I don’t think that it could hold its own in the category in which it has been placed.
It’s a nice movie with a target audience of mainly teenage to middle aged women and it does deal with some moral dilemmas and issues which are dealt with comedy but also class.
Cast of Bend it like Beckham.
Director ~ Gurinder Chadha
Jessminder Bamrah ~ Parminder Nagra
Jules ~ Keira Knightley
Joe ~ Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Mr Bamrah (Jess’ dad) ~ Anupam Kher
Binky Bamrah ~ Archie Panjabi
