Bend It Like Beckham | 2002
- DIRECTOR |
- Gurinder Chadha
Feelgood romance with Jess (Parminder Nagra) defying cultural conventions to play women’s soccer.
It’s in the heart of London’s West End that Jess secretly buys soccer boots, from Soccer Scene, 46 Carnaby Street, W1.
Briefly the centre of everything fab and trendy in the mid-Sixties, the street has somehow managed to live off its fame for decades. You can see it during its heyday in the wonderfully silly Smashing Time, though the ‘Carnaby Street’ seen in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is overlooked by the Hollywood Hills.
After buying her boots, Jess relaxes in the pleasantly old-fashioned Three Greyhounds, 25 Greek Street at Old Compton Street in the heart of what is now London’s Gay Village, in Soho.
Jess lives in West London, beneath the Heathrow Airport flight path, at 33 Sutton Square, Heston, near Hounslow.
Yeading FC, Beaconsfield Road, Southall, is the ground where Jess trains with Joe (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), and Barra Park, to the west in Hayes, is the park where she proves she’s more than a match for the lads. Incidentally, the interior of Barra Hall, in Barra Hall Park, is seen as the ‘French’ village hall in Lasse Hallström’s Chocolat, with Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp.
Not quite so far west, the gleaming, golden-domed Sikh temple, where the boisterous wedding takes place, is Central Gurdwara, 62 Queensdale Road at the corner of Norland Road, in Notting Hill, W11.
There’s a trip to Germany, where the team stays at Hotel Steigenberger, Heiligengeistbrücke 4, Hamburg.
