Bend It Like Beckham
This movie about a growing up as an Indian girl near London is mostly good, but occasionally brilliant. I imagine that seeing this movie would be a very empowering experience for girls that happen to be both blessed and cursed with a family with a very strong, traditional culture that can often appear to be at odds with modern life. "Bend it Like Beckham" does a wonderful job contrasting these cultures and the very strong persistent tension that our hero Jess is caught in. I really enjoyed the soccer scenes and the friendship that develops between the female leads. True, the plot of this movie maps almost perfectly to the Karate Kid/Rocky gold standard of plot evolution and character development, but that doesn't really get in the way.