Now streaming on Netflix, Best of the Best celebrates the very real world of competitive college Bollywood dance teams. Written by Hasan Minhaj and Prashanth Venkataramanujam (based on their own experiences) and directed by Lena Khan, the film is one of the first to depict the Indian-American and diasporic experience.
The Gist: Maya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Anjali (Priyanka Kedia) have been best friends and dancers since childhood. After a mishap from their senior year dance performance goes viral, Maya wants to distance herself from dance when they arrive at UCLA together. But soon, they’re both enticed by the shiny and competitive world of collegiate Bollywood dance, which will test both themselves and their friendship.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of? The film has been described as Booksmart meets Bring It On, and we’d also add Step Up to that list of reference points.
Performance Worth Watching: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan proved her chops on Never Have I Ever, and her version of Maya isn’t too far from what we’d imagine Devi to be in college. But it’s Priyanka Kedia who acts opposite Ramakrishnan as Anjali that really breaks through in Best of the Best. Her role isn’t as flashy, but has to keep the emotional center of the film grounded, and like her character, Kedia has a lot of “lead energy.”
Our Take: For those in the Indian-American diaspora, a movie about our college Bollywood dance team circuit seems both too niche to ever expect to see on screen, and also far too interesting to never become part of the wider consciousness. Netflix’s latest, Best of the Best, threads the needle, delivering a primer on what your Desi friends were probably up to after classes in college, complete with a well-drawn female friendship anchoring the movie.
As with any film about minority groups, Best of the Best isn’t meant to represent the entire community, and some of the jokes about it fall flat — especially the poorly executed ones about the complicated Hindu-Muslim dynamics within the larger South Asian contexts. But there is still more than enough to love about the vast representation on screen — from the inclusion of South Indian kuthu style dance alongside hip-hop and classical Bharatnatyam, to the evolved cross-generational female characters that inhabit the story. The film’s secret weapon is the specificity of the world, which makes Best of the Best appealing to anyone that presses play.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Best of the Best is a joyous coming of age film, a celebration of sisterhood, and an accurate depiction of the Indian-American college experience.
Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a film and TV writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, ELLE, and more. She is the co-host of the podcast PromRad Approved with fellow Decider contributor Proma Khosla. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.