You don't have to know who British soccer superstar David Beckham is to enjoy Bend It Like Beckham, which finds fresh cinematic moves in a musty old formula. (Oh, yes, he also is Mr. Posh Spice.)

Co-writer-director Gurinder Chadha's third feature film has the kind of plot you could recite in your sleep: Jess (Parminder Nagra) - the 18-year-old daughter of orthodox Sikhs -- defies all sorts of obstacles to make it in the mostly white male world of British soccer, starting with a family that has decidedly different plans for her.

Will Jess succeed in fulfilling her dreams? Or will she fall into the domestic pattern of her older sister, whose impending marriage has mom and dad very happy?

The issue acquires very real urgency when it turns out that Jess's climactic match with a women's team is scheduled for the same day as her sister's wedding.

The pleasure of this film lies not in its outcome, which is largely preordained, but in the alternately comical and troublesome path travelled by Jess on her way to scoring the most deeply personal of goals.

For one thing, there's her tomboyish friend Jules (Keira Knightley) -- a fellow soccer fanatic with designs on a soccer career in the United States.

Jules isn't quite as cropped in the hair department as Jess's hero, Beckham ("this skinhead boy," as her mother dismissively describes him). The problem is Jules's passion for team coach Joe (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers), which ultimately becomes a wedge between her and Jess.

Why? Because it's Jess, unexpectedly, who ends up in Joe's fond embrace, even if Jules's mother Paula (Juliet Stevenson, in a hilarious turn) mistakenly assumes that the two teen girls are the ones in love.

Even though Chadha's movie is inevitably dominated by women, Ameet Chana offers delightful support as Jess's best male friend, Tony, who breaks a familial taboo all his own by admitting he is gay. ("You're Indian!" Jess exclaims, in a spontaneous cry of disbelief.)

And in what is probably the most straightforward role that Rhys-Meyers has yet played - he was the androgynous glam rocker of Velvet Goldmine -- Joe and his heedless father make quite a contrast with Jess and her overprotective parents.

At least Jess comes from a family that cares, Joe argues, whereas he himself does not. To that extent, a moralizing Joe gets to speak for the film as a whole, which will leave even non-enthusiasts of soccer caring about the outcome, too.

Three stars out of four.