‘Best of the Best’ Review: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia Dazzle in Bollywood-Fusion Comedy

Director Lena Khan’s exuberant third feature pairs collegiate charm and sparkling production design with satire from Hasan Minhaj and his "Patriot Act" co-writer, Prashanth Venkataramanujam.

“To be extra is to be human.” That surprisingly timeless ethos underpins the brilliant script and exhilarating theatricality of Netflix’s “Best of the Best,” a giddy and soul-affirming story of two UCLA freshmen whose childhood bond gets tested by the high-stakes world of competitive Bollywood-fusion dance. Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (“Never Have I Ever”) and Priyanka Kedia (“Disclosure Day”) co-star as Maya and Anjali, budding computer science majors with dance talent to spare — but plenty to learn as they grow into their adult lives and overlapping ambitions.

In her third feature, director Lena Khan turns a whip-smart script by Hasan Minhaj and his “Patriot Act” co-writer Prashanth Venkataramanujam into an over-the-top coming-of-age comedy. It’s one that smoothly blends modern political satire with the familiar rhythms of classic collegiate drama (“AI is here, your degrees are worthless, you’ll never own a home — back to practice!”), and the result is a narrative that’s at once comforting and recognizable without ever sacrificing the specificity needed to make such a uniquely cinematic friendship feel authentic. Khan’s path from the intimate immigrant comedy “The Tiger Hunter” to Disney’s “Flora & Ulysses” makes this especially satisfying to consider as her third film, delivering a bigger and brighter movie with the same clear point of view.

“Best of the Best” opens at a high-school dance contest, where the headstrong Maya is busy executing a clever but risky plan to stand out that ends in disaster for her and Anjali both. When I was in college, I had a friend get hit in the head by a malfunctioning drone, too… and while it’s a memory I still consider a testament to that kid’s spirit, it did force my sister to drive him to the hospital. Maya’s painfully relatable ordeal is made even worse by the fact that her overconfidence was caught on camera, and the viral afterlife of the so-called “Drone Strike” incident makes her something of an unwilling celebrity in the dance community.

I can’t pretend to possess the fluency required to adequately consider this film’s representation of Bollywood history (you’d have to talk to someone like former IndieWire writer Proma Khosla or read her coverage of classic Indian films, like “Andaz Apna Apna,” for that!) — but it’s not hard to understand the universal truth governing the emotional choreography of “Best of the Best.” If college is defined by unbelievable disasters that become lifelong stories, then this singular tale of friendship is forged in the aftermath of connecting through a very public mistake.

By the time Maya and Anjali arrive at UCLA, the viral drone mishap is only mostly behind them. The California campus setting has an comforting familiarity on screen right now, letting their introduction spill out onto sunlit quads, overstuffed dorm rooms, and chaotic student events that promise adventure around every corner. Captain Ronak (Ankur Rathee) is about to graduate, but he refuses to leave his team before defeating his ex-girlfriend and her rival squad in a national competition.

Echoing the approval-seeking, play-it-safe approach of the upperclassmen in “Pitch Perfect,” Ronak clashes with Maya’s fiery ingenuity early and often. They both have deeply personal reasons for wanting to win, but, like Anna Kendrick’s cup-playing protagonist before her, the rookie dancer just can’t dim her shine. That instinct is ultimately good for the group, even as it leaves her feeling ostracized — and seeking shelter with an adorable love interest played by Chaneil Kular (“Sex Education”). Maya eventually has to confront how her belief that she must prove herself limits not only her, but her team and friend as well.

On the flip side, Anjalia proves remarkably easy to overpower at times, and it isn’t long before her blossoming connection with Ronak — and his belief that she is really the fresh face who should be leading the squad to victory — creates fizzy and fabulous conflict. A complicated beneficiary and victim of so-called “pretty privilege,” Anjali is more than the shorthand suggests. She’s clearly talented and sparkling in her own way, but guided by an intuitive romanticism that leave her tender and open-minded nature sometimes looking like a vulnerability. Where Maya can’t help but explode into spectacle, Anjali absorbs the world around her. That makes her sweetly susceptible to suggestion, and Kedia’s portrayal is impressive in the way it conveys Anjali’s subtle reckoning with a prematurely stunted sense of self.

The movie’s craft is as specific as its script. Production designer Henry Dunn and costume designer Elisabeth Vastola make UCLA feel like a real-life social ecosystem rather than a generic backdrop, while still allowing every number to erupt into its own magical world of performance. Vastola’s costumes understand the difference between cultural reference and costume-pageant shorthand, as exquisite streetwear and themed competition designs all manage to coexist without flattening the characters into a single idea of South Asian identity.

Cinematographer Adam Carboni frames most of the movie in a glowing daytime warmth, peppered with gorgeous intermissions that plunge the audience into starry nights that give the whole affair a music video-like pulse. For her part, Khan still knows when to pull back and let the performers wholly occupy the screen, and editor Phillip J. Bartell makes the scale of “Best of the Best” generous but not busy.

At a time when even intentionally provocative genre films can’t keep up with the pace of futurism, Minhaj and Venkataramanujam also use their topical chops to make this bubbly effort particularly of the moment. That’s achieved through both quicksilver political comedy and the seamless incorporation of the dual-screen lifestyle that defines not just teens and twenty-somethings — but practically every age group these days. Online displays aren’t just props but seriously considered extensions of these characters and how they understand themselves. Proud of the bond they’ve built, yet suddenly forced to grapple with Maya’s combative nature and Anjali’s reluctance to tell her no, the girls find themselves in a kind of rocky love story that hinges on their ability to come back to one another.

From the girls’ first glimpse of their future UCLA team (punctuated by the dreamy image of Maya mentally projecting herself onto the stage), to a genius finale number that recreates a kind of living museum (and arguably belongs in a brick-and-mortar institution instead), “Best of the Best” never forces its plot to needlessly hustle between numbers. Instead, it fluidly weaves the roles into a work as rhythmically satisfying in its narrative construction as it is in its physical movement. An opposing team’s stunning performance set to Labrinth’s “Mount Everest” flexes the ambition of the dance concepts at play — while a malfunctioning, smoke-and-petal-breathing tiger cart arrives to remind us even the most daring fantasies can suffocate under poor execution.

Minhaj appears throughout as a wise, and perhaps overly handsome, teacher and faculty sponsor, who grounds a student date-night auction and several computer programming lectures in the sense that these girls actually belong to a crackling institution capable of setting them up for all kinds of greatness. The broader ensemble is equally well calibrated to that optimism, with Janina Gavankar bringing veteran authority as Anjali’s mom and Lilly Singh making a spirited appearance that feels more earned than most celebrity cameos.

Transitioning from their teenage years to the mesmerizing world of UCLA dance, Maya and Anjali try to adapt to their shifting personal dynamic — and “Best of the Best” finds its heart in demonstrating just how tricky those moments in life can prove. The girls can’t fully embrace the changes they need to make individually until their conflict has played out several times over, and it’s only as that pattern sets in that a thought as fabulous as, “To be extra is to be human!,” becomes more than a punchline. Even when it wraps things up a little too conveniently, “Best of the Best” leaves you wanting a movie more like a traditional three-hour Bollywood affair. The tradeoff here plays like one of those bite-size songs optimized for streaming: a film you can reasonably watch on repeat and always trust its spirit to fill the room.

Grade: B+

“Best of the Best” is streaming on Netflix September 18.