Never Have I Ever S1 Review: An American Recipe with Indian Ingredients!

Never Have I Ever starring Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Richa Moorjani in the lead roles is the new Netflix Original title available in the teen romance section. And if you’re someone like me who watched multiple high-school rom-com series’ and movies on Netflix, you can surely draw parallels with others, which are highly popular. And to give my overall impression on the show, this new Netflix comedy created by Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher suffers from lack of originality when it comes to the characterization and the overall narrative itself, as it kept hinting me of other series’ available on Netflix through and through. Never Have I Ever Netflix Never Have I Ever Review

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The narrative of Never Have I Ever details the life of Devi Viswakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan), an American high-school teenager of Indian descent attempting to overcome her past trauma and have a normal sophomore year alongside her friends Eleanor (Ramona Young) and Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez). Subsequently, she also develops a huge crush on Paxton (Darren Barnet), who happens to be her classmate as well as the “Hottest Kid” in the entire school.

While she lives with her mother – Dr. Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan) and cousin Kamala (Richa Moorjani), Devi’s family is presented as the typical Indian migrants who adopted the American lifestyle and settled there for good. And this gives us a great insight into the people who moved from India to the United States, and the struggle of the Indian parents to keep their kids grounded to their roots and culture. It was indeed very fresh to watch an Indian perspective offered to a show, however, it is also the only refreshing aspect as the narrative is both mundane and cliché to watch.

The first negative of Never Have I Ever would be the characterization of Devi’s friends Eleanor and Fabiola. And I guess, nowadays, writers settled with the ordinary as being ‘Gay’ was the only qualification for every other lead character’s friends. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the LGBTQ+ community, however, it is tiring to see it being overly exploited, in several movies and series’.

Moving on, the predictability factor continues to dampen the overall quality of the show as the romantic scenes and the love-triangle drama are comparable to several other stories belonging to the same genre. And despite being a show with fabulous potential and ability to improve, these similarities, and almost indistinguishable characters, managed to keep me bored for the most part.

But, on the bright side, emotions played a significant part and acted as a positive aspect of the entire series. The characters were able to emote very well on-screen, which, in turn, helped me to have a grasp on them while watching. Additionally, the music is blended into the narrative and increased the likeability factor of the show. Kudos to the production design, giving us a chance to watch and feel the life in the states.

More on the positives, the performances from the lead protagonist, and others were exceptional, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as a young Indian teen was a delight to watch from the beginning to the end. And Poorna Jagannathan as the strict, conservative Indian mother stood out with her acting skills.

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Overall, Never Have I Ever had all the potential to be a great show, instead, it fell short due to the clichéd writing and the lack of originality. The narrative failed to offer something novel or contemporary, except for the fact the story has an Indian-American touch to it. If you would like to watch the lifestyle and the drama of a conservative Indian family living in the United States, then Never Have I Ever might appease you. Apart from that, if you want to watch something intriguing, then I would recommend you to browse through our website for some other suggestions. Watch ‘Never Have I Ever’ on Netflix here.

Rating – 2/5 | Grade – C

Images via Netflix