By Makayla Flenoury
On Sept. 18, Netflix released the new coming-of-age comedy, “Best of the Best,” set in a world of competitive Bollywood-fusion dance.
I am a sucker for dance romance movies and college dramas, so I was super excited for this film’s release — a cultural dance movie fused with modern hip-hop; sign me up. Plus, the movie stars Maitreyi Ramakrishnan from one of my favorite shows, “Never Have I Ever.”
“Best of the Best” isn’t actually a dance romance. It focuses on childhood best friends, Maya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Anjali (Priyanka Kedia), as they transition into their first year at UCLA and a new cutthroat competitive dance team.
As they juggle college life, a challenging team rivalry and their own personal issues, a huge fight forces them to face their past. There is a romance subplot; however, I don’t think it was needed in the story.
“Best of the Best” starts with Maya and Anjali’s last semester of high school, when they perform in the senior talent show. They put on a show-stopping dance routine using drones as special effects, but the drones malfunctioned and hit Maya in the face, making her the next trending video.
Maya’s embarrassment follows her into UCLA as most of the students recognized her from the video. I don’t know how anyone could tell it was her because the video is quite dark, and you cannot see her face. This feeds into Maya’s insecurity about being considered the “weird girl” and constantly being compared to Anjali, which comes into play later.
Anjali convinces Maya to try out for UCLA’s cutthroat dance team, both with different visions for how things will turn out. Anjali fantasizes about falling in love with the team’s leader, Ronak (Ankur Rathee), while Maya dreams of taking the dance team to victory in the “Best of the Best” championship competition.
That’s exactly how things go, just not the way they expected.
The two make the team, where we learn about the team’s rivalry with the USC team. UCLA planned to beat them with a Bollywood wedding choreography, though Maya thought the idea was cliché and predictable. Her ideas were dismissed, and the team moved on to picking nominees for the two leads for the choreography. Both Maya and Anjali were nominated.
Maya overhears Ronak and two others talk about how Maya won the votes for the female lead; however, they don’t want her as the lead. They called her “out of control” and said that Anjali has more “lead energy.” They find a loophole in how they can secretly change the winner without breaking the rules and do just that. Anjali becomes the lead, and Maya doesn’t have the heart to tell her the truth.
This only strengthens Maya’s drive to prove herself. She’s always been driven, opinionated, and motivated, but people have handed Anjali everything she’s wanted because they admire her.
Maya knows that if the team doesn’t add more flair, they will lose the competition. She tries to suggest different ideas that still include the Bollywood wedding, but they’re all shut down. She decides to take matters into her own hands.
During the dance routine on stage in the preliminary rounds. She activates a fog machine hidden inside one of the props. Everything was fine at first, but it ended in absolute disaster. The team’s ranking plummeted to 54th place, and Maya was kicked off the team.
Fast forward, and Maya is back on the team (thanks to Anjali), but now Anjali quit because she’s on academic probation. With Anjali gone, Maya took the lead. Maya spends most of her time competing and changing the choreography’s theme while Anjali is stuck catching up on work. The team makes it back into the top ten by the skin of their teeth and moves on to the “Best of the Best” competition.
As the team is celebrating and dancing together, there’s a video of Maya and Ronak that’s supposed to look romantic. Not only that, but a social media influencer interviews Maya with a live chat. Someone asks about Anjali, and Maya accidentally puts her on blast. Anjali watches both videos, and Maya comes home to find that Anjali moved out of their dorm.
Maya goes to find Anjali, but they get into a huge fight in front of everyone. During the argument, Maya ends up quitting the team. After that, everyone is on fall break. Maya and Anjali don’t speak the entire break.
When break is over, Maya is convinced to return to the team once again, and Anjali is finally off academic probation. Maya shares her new idea for the “Best of the Best” choreography, and the team suggests that both Maya and Anjali are the leads.
At the competition, the two are able to rekindle their friendship and take home the crown.
I like this movie; however, there is a lot that goes on. I think the film would’ve been smoother if they just stuck to one plot, but it seems like they were trying to create four. With that being said, I can understand why they chose to write it this way. A lot happens in college, especially with extracurriculars.
If I were to cut anything, it would be the romance. I don’t feel as if it added anything to the plot. In the part where Maya and Ronak are “dancing” together in the video, they tried to create some weird tension that just didn’t work. I do think Maya’s romance with Arjun (Chaneil Kular) worked well, so that can stay.
There was a short section in the introduction that was very confusing. It was like they were supposed to portray the first few days of college, but it was done poorly. I couldn’t follow what was going on.
Overall, I did like the film’s main plot. I think it was a good story. I’d give this film a 7/10.