Anita & Me

This adaptation of Meera Syal's semi-autobiographical novel is vaguely in the mould of East Is East and Bend It Like Beckham. We're in Toddington, the Black Country, during the early '70s. Twelve-year-old Meena (Uppal), the daughter of a Sikh family, is besotted with blonde Brummie princess Anita (Brewster), glam leader of girl gang 'the wenches' (membership: three). In this village, that's excitement. During a long, heady summer, the two become friends and then enemies, as the working class Anita is abandoned by her mother and starts hanging out with a racist bully boy. It's Meena's first broken heart. The film is so desperate to be loved it practically wags its tail. For Syal, it seems, we're all just sitcom stereotypes under the skin.