Best of the Best review: Maitreyi Ramakrishnan's dance drama trips over the very clichés it skewers
In one scene of Best of the Best , a caustic Maya (played by the iridescent Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) informs her fusion dance team's captain that their planned theme, Bollywood weddings, is trite and clichéd. It's Bollywood through a foreign lens, she says. In other words, if you ChatGPT 'Bollywood,' this is roughly where you end up. I was almost impressed by those few seconds of self-awareness.…
Best of the Best, a dance drama helmed by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, falls short of its intent to critique the superficial portrayal of India in foreign media. Despite the actress' self-awareness during a brief scene where she dismisses Bollywood weddings as clichéd, the film ultimately returns to its formulaic depiction of India. The narrative is riddled with clichés, such as wedding routines, stereotypical "mean girls," and a painful Kohinoor reference.
While the friendship between protagonists Maya and Anjali offers some genuine tension, it remains unresolved, treated more as a plot device rather than a lived experience. The film's high points include Ramakrishnan's effervescent performance and Hasan Minhaj's snarky one-liners, but these moments are overshadowed by the movie's overall failure to transcend its borrowed tropes.
Ultimately, Best of the Best fails to deliver the nuanced representation of South Asia it promises, ending up as the clichéd routine it once criticized.
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