Bend It Like Beckham

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The most exhilarating movie so far this year. It's made up of many familiar elements -- think ''Monsoon Wedding'' meets ''My Beautiful Laundrette'' meets ''Personal Best'' -- yet before long, you catch on to how buoyant and funny and original it is.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Terrifically fun entertainment; wonderfully shot and acted, instilled with spirit and life and able to woo us with its exhuberant freshness.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Pure, undiluted joy.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Terrifically charming and energetic film.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The juxtaposition between the fast-paced plays on the soccer field and the color-drenched, music-infused wedding party is a highlight of this captivating film.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

A joyful celebration of spirit and endurance.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I saw more important films at Sundance 2003, but none more purely enjoyable than Bend It Like Beckham, which is just about perfect as a teenage coming-of-age comedy.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

Bright, lively and liberating movie.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Smart, lively and altogether warmhearted dramatic comedy.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

There's a great sense of fun in the cultural collision between Indian and British lifestyles -- often within the same person.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

You seldom leave a theater walking on air, much less float all through a movie. But the joyous Bend It Like Beckham never lets you down.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

I'm still smiling as I recall Jess, the soccer star-to-be, standing behind her straitlaced mother in the kitchen and casually bouncing a head of lettuce on her knee.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Energetic, eager-to-please culture-clash comedy.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The feel-good movie of a feel-blah movie year, with all the positive qualities and one negative trait that this description implies.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Enjoyable enough that the sprinkles of artificial sweetness in the mix don't do lasting or irreparable damage.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The film's most natural appeal is to adolescent athletes -- in particular, cleat-wearing young ladies who will bask in its hard-won girl-power message. This is a movie with bruised shins and a huge heart.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

As the movie breathlessly cuts back and forth from a boisterous wedding celebration to a high-stakes soccer match, even the grumpy cynics will have been won over.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Writer-director Gurinder Chadha juggles all the angles with flair and fairness. Like Nagra and Knightley, the movie is a sweetheart.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Like the rest of the film, Beckham's climax is surprisingly satisfying, however, in large part because director Gurinder Chadha films the competing big game and big fat Indian wedding of Nagra's sister with equivalently bursting levels of color, panache, and verve.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Fine character work by Juliet Stevenson, Archie Panjabi, and Bollywood regular Anupam Kher make this well worth seeing.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Every generation has to discover the same clichés that were drummed into previous generations, and kids could do worse than to learn them from this film.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

The portrait of traditional Indian life Chadha provides manages to mine laughs from characters without resorting to making them laughable.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Enjoyably shameless confection.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Much of the value -- entertainment and otherwise -- of seeing a culture-specific movie is to connect with a larger world than your everyday life offers.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

An energetic, feel-good blend of comedy, romance and benign drama -- with a side dish of social commentary -- that works despite its strict adherence to the culture clash/generation gap formula.

Variety Derek Elley

Writer-helmer Gurinder Chadha assembles a gallery of broadly played stereotypes into a movie about social attitudes that's more rooted in small-screen sitcom than anything deeper.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Lightweight, thoroughly charming fluff.

Slate David Edelstein

The movie isn't unwatchable. It's clumsily good-natured, the actors are appealing, and there are worse ways to spend two hours than looking at pretty young girls in shorts kicking balls. But the movie is way, way too pleased with itself.

Film Threat Darrin Keene

While this film offers plenty of laughs and a cool soundtrack, it also tiptoes around complex subjects of social change and inter-racial relations.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

There's nothing terribly bad about Bend It Like Beckham -- in fact it's a fine Friday-night-out film -- it's just that it strikes me as being an awful little piffle cloaked in the garb of something so much more.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Bend It Like Beckham is supposedly a movie about youth; its biggest shortcoming is that it rarely feels young.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Director and co-writer Gurinder Chadha continues in the vein of her previous movies, "What's Cooking?" and "Bhaji on the Beach," exploring with humor and compassion how cultures adapt in foreign climes.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Just a few years ago, the generally felt aspiration of ethnic groups was to blend in with the majority culture. Today it's to flourish in modern society while actively remembering old-country values...Bend It Like Beckham could cement the trend.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Its cheery inoffensiveness, though, is in some ways disappointing.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Routine, genial sports movie.

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Only silent Becks himself rises unstained from this reheated ethno-niche stew.