BEFORE: From South Africa to the U.K., and from rugby (football) to soccer (football). No direct acting links were available tonight, but at least Matt Damon from "Invictus" was also in "Dogma" with Alan Rickman, who was also in "Love Actually" with Keira Knightley.
THE PLOT: The daughter of orthodox Sikh rebels against her parents' traditionalism by playing on a soccer team.
AFTER: My co-worker, a soccer player, was somewhat shocked that I was planning to watch this film, thinking it to be far out of my comfort zone. But it did get great reviews back when it was released, and it's like one of the most successful indie films, right? I figured I could give it a whirl.
My first feeling about the film, it's part sports film, part relationship drama, part comedy and part social commentary. Sometimes that can work, but here it felt more like the movie was trying to be all things to all people, and that's just impossible. Secondly, it feels clichéd, with the uptight parents and people who are shocked that a girl might want to play sports. That might have seemed shocking in the 1950's, but this film is set in the present day, and felt out of place. Women have been playing professional sports since at least the 1980's, right? (I kid.)
Then we've got this love triangle, which isn't really a love triangle since the relationships aren't consummated, so it's largely theoretical - but still feels forced in a way. Each leg of the triangle feels awkward somehow, especially when the friendship between the two girls was strained because of it.
Speaking of the relationship between the girls, the unenlightened parents and other relatives mistake them for lesbians, which isn't played up enough in either a comic or dramatic fashion. You've got to pick a direction and run with it, in order to make a point. The mother who said she was OK with her daughter being gay - well, then what's with all the hysterics? Is she OK with it or not? This should have been bigger, she should have been either really OK with it, or really not OK with it.
In fact, it seems like the plot didn't push far enough in any direction - any conflicts that came up all seemed to get smoothed over quite quickly, except maybe the part about the main character lying to her parents - but even that got resolved quite quickly once she told the truth. So the major sticking point in the relationship turned out to be...not so bad after all. Great for the relationship, but boring for a film.
No one ever seems to get more than slightly inconvenienced about anything, even divisive cultural differences. Everyone seems pretty well-off, no one's living in a shanty-town in Johannesburg being oppressed - so by comparison, this feels like weak sauce. So your mother wants you to learn to cook and sometimes wear a dress? Cry me a river, honey.
They didn't even give the soccer team a good rival team to play against. Who did they beat? I guess it doesn't matter, unless you want the sports part of your film to be taken seriously. Nothing here about the mechanics of the game either, unless you count showing how a team plays slightly worse when two of its players are not getting along.
On a technical note, if you're going to cross-cut between a soccer game and a lavish wedding, you should try to make sure that there's a point to be made in doing so. I got zero meaning or metaphor out of the juxtaposition - yes, you can show both, but what does it MEAN if you do so? Compare it to something like the cross-cutting at the end of "The Godfather", and you'll see what I mean.
They keep trying to sell Americans on soccer, and time after time, it just doesn't take. At the time of the release of this film, the WUSA was riding high, but only lasted between 2000 and 2003. I suppose MLS is doing a little better, but I don't see it doing better than America's 5th most popular sport. Fine by me, as according to Carlin's rules, it's not a real sport anyway, since there are dots on the ball and you can't use your hands. (Tap dancing? Not a sport.)
Also starring Parminder Nagra, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (last seen in "Michael Collins"), Archie Panjabi, Juliet Stevenson.
RATING: 4 out of 10 penalty kicks
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