Best of the Best Review: Lena Khan's Fizzy Dance Comedy

Maya (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) and Anjali (Priyanka Kedia) have been best friends since freshman orientation, and they've been dancing together nearly as long. Maya is the disciplined one, the planner, the person who color-codes her practice schedule. Anjali is the spark, the improviser, the one who can turn a botched formation into something the judges remember. When a spot opens on the university's most decorated fusion team - a crew that treats rehearsal like a cage match and loyalty like a currency - the two friends leap at it, believing they'll rise together.

They don't. At least not at first. The team's veterans (Chaneil Kular and Ankur Rathee, both excellent at playing casually cruel) have their own ideas about who belongs, and the coach, played with weary precision by Hasan Minhaj, isn't in the business of making anyone comfortable. What follows is a contest not just of steps but of values: does Maya compromise her standards to survive the room, or does Anjali's looseness become the thing that saves them both? The screenplay, sharp and propulsive, keeps the answer genuinely in doubt until the final act.

Khan, whose previous work showed a gift for finding humor in tight-knit communities, directs with real affection for the dance itself. The choreography sequences are shot with clarity and rhythm rather than the seizure-inducing cutting that plagues so many dance movies - you can see the work, and that makes the payoffs land harder. There's a mid-film competition number set to a propulsive track that's staged with such escalating chaos that the audience at my screening broke into applause before it even finished.

But the film's real engine is Ramakrishnan and Kedia. Ramakrishnan, so good at playing quick-witted and guarded, gives Maya a brittleness that makes her early mistakes sting. Kedia is the revelation - loose, magnetic, funny with her whole body, and when the script asks her to go quiet and hurt, she does it without leaning on a single crutch. Their friendship is the movie's central romance, and Khan treats it with the seriousness it deserves without ever losing the joke.

The supporting cast is a deep bench. Minhaj gets the film's best deadpan lines as a coach who has clearly seen every possible version of this conflict before. Shreya Navile and Becky Alex, as teammates on opposite sides of the internal politics, add texture to what could have been stock roles. Nihar Duvvuri, in a smaller turn, steals two scenes outright.

Where the film stumbles is in its midsection, which repeats a beat or two about commitment and compromise that the script had already nailed. And a late subplot involving a rival team's sabotage feels imported from a broader, sillier movie than the one Khan is making. These are quibbles, not cracks.

What stays with you is the specificity. The film understands that fusion dance is not a gimmick but a discipline, one that requires its practitioners to hold two traditions in their bodies at once and make it look effortless. That's a lovely metaphor for the immigrant experience, and Khan lets it breathe without underlining it. "Best of the Best" is a comedy about wanting something badly and learning what it costs. It's the rare crowd-pleaser that respects its crowd.

Pros

• Ramakrishnan and Kedia have electric chemistry; their friendship feels lived-in.
• Khan stages dance sequences with clarity and escalating energy.
• Hasan Minhaj's deadpan coach is a consistent scene-stealer.
• The script balances laughs with genuine emotional stakes.

Cons

• The middle act repeats a lesson the film already taught.
• A late sabotage subplot clashes tonally with the rest.
• 116 minutes is a touch long for the story being told.

"Best of the Best" is the kind of movie that reminds you why the sports-and-competition formula endures: when the characters are this specific and the stakes are this personal, the old beats feel new. Khan has made a film that's funny enough to quote and sincere enough to move you, and she's given two young stars a showcase worthy of their talents. Go for the dancing. Stay for the friendship. It's one of the year's best.