The ruthless world of Bollywood fusion collegiate dance is no joke. As best friends Maya (played by Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Anjali (Priyanka Kedia) discover in the new trailer of the upcoming comedy Best of the Best, making it to the top requires blood, sweat, tears, and the sacrifice of one’s hair — all in the name of art.
Directed by Lena Khan (Flora & Ulysses) and premiering on Sept. 18 on Netflix, the film follows the close-knit duo, who join UCLA’s competitive Bollywood-fusion dance team. They start to realize that the road to winning the US championship is far more raucous and cutthroat than they ever imagined.
For Ramakrishnan, who came of age as teenager Devi Vishwakumar in Never Have I Ever, the film represents a graduation of sorts. Her character’s gumption and vulnerability, on display in the trailer above, immediately resonated with Ramakrishnan. Maya convinces Anjali to try out for their school’s dance team, which sends both friends on a riotous journey of self-discovery. “Maya’s full of spunk. She’s got nerve,” Ramakrishnan tells Netflix. “She’s quite combative, but I love her. She’s not just your surface-level hard-ass. She’s vulnerable, and she really just wants to be loved.”
Likewise, Kedia felt uniquely connected to the role of Anjali. “I’ve been her before, and I still am her in small ways,” she explains. “I think we’re meeting Anjali on this really beautiful journey where she’s learning who she is outside the roles she’s used to playing — whether that’s the obedient daughter or unconditional best friend.”
At its core, Best of the Best is a celebration of friendship, sisterhood, and, of course, the dynamic world of Bollywood fusion dance.
“[The movie] is a culmination of so many South Asian American kids’ experiences growing up in the United States of America,” says Hasan Minhaj, who also stars in the film and co-wrote the script with Patriot Act collaborator Prashanth Venkataramanujam. “It’s very much a coming-of-age story of the Desi diaspora experience. For both me and Prashanth, this is a culmination of a bunch of painfully true events that we got to witness firsthand.”
In addition to Ramakrishnan, Kedia, and Minhaj, the film’s ensemble includes Chaneil Kular (Sex Education), Ankur Rathee (Single Papa, Shehzada), Shreya Navile (Month of Madhu), Nico Greetham (The Prom), Lilly Singh (Bad Moms), Janina Gavankar (The Morning Show), and Kavi Ramachandran (General Hospital, The Sex Lives of College Girls).
“If you haven’t experienced intercollegiate Bollywood fusion dance, you have to imagine the most cutthroat, competitive, pressure-filled, creative cyclone of performing arts that you’ve seen — all while these folks are probably going to go to med school or engineering school,” Khan explains.
Kedia notes about the competition, “It feels like life and death,” she says. “A lot of the fun of the story is how much this means to everyone and how seriously they take it. Things get really tense. It’s like Dance Moms drama.”
“It’s very intense,” adds Ramakrishnan. “It’s just full of passion, and I have such a deep respect for those who do it, because you have to love it in order to do it. And even if you’re not dancing, even if you’re not on the team, the energy is absolutely infectious.”
Join the Best of the Best when the film arrives Sept. 18, only on Netflix.
