Bend it Like Beckham
The British film industry's latest attempt to tap into the Hollywood market with wide appeal, feel good themes and only-just-English-enough stereotypes for everyone to laugh with and fall in love with. It can also be described as a lightweight East is East since it's central tenet is the cultural tension experienced by the new, English-born generation of migrant stock.
Jess (Nagra) is a great football player who worships David Beckham and doesn't want to do anything else. Trouble is, her parents are stalwart traditionalist Indians and believe in their daughter settling down to marriage and a good Indian wife's life of cooking.
Encouraged by English born footy freak and new best friend Juliette (Keira Knightley), and handsome coach Joe, Jess struggles to follow her heart and live up to parental and cultural obligations. The two seem mutually exclusive, and it's that tension that carries the film, including subplots of romance with Joe, similar tension with Juliette, and Juliette's own parents and their conflicting wishes for her.
Cute and sweet and funny, every scene uplifting and with a requisite happy ending - everything a Hollywood follow-your-heart comedy should be.