Netflix’s ‘Never Have I Ever’ is irresistible, important, and funny as hell: Review

Never Have I Ever is the sweet, savvy Indian-American comedy we deserve. 

From executive producers Mindy Kaling and Lang Fisher, the endlessly enjoyable new Netflix series achieves what Hollywood long treated like a representational high-wire: Delivering excellent comedy and characters without apologizing to a predominantly white industry and culture. All it took was a team of creators who know their story inside and out and actually give a damn about telling it right.

Never Have I Ever introduces Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) — a name no characters struggle with and neither should you — an all-American teen who just wants the simple things in life, like going to her first high school party and dating a stone-cold hottie. What the trailers left out is that less than one year ago, Devi’s father died of a heart attack and the shock temporarily paralyzed her from the waist down. She might be every high school sophomore hoping for a fresh start in a new year, but she sees the renewed use of her legs as a chance to return to equilibrium after catastrophe.

Oh, and all that is narrated to us not by Devi, but by tennis legend John McEnroe, for reasons that are promised but you don’t even question because it is precisely random enough to be perfect.

The sophomore self-improvement plan includes Devi’s best friends Fabiola (Lee Rodriguez) and Eleanor (Ramona Young), two cheery and loyal nerds who balk at Devi’s mildly sociopathic strategy (“Sociopaths get shit done,” she says with a barely-concealed hint of pride). Her mother Nalini (Poorna Jagannathan) cares less about Devi’s social aspirations (read: not at all) than her academic career and the family’s quest to arrange cousin Kamala’s (Richa Moorjani) for marriage.

With these simple plot pillars and stellar cast, Never Have I Ever envelopes you. The 10 30-minute episodes fly by with impunity, bringing you a beautiful, broken TV family whose humorous everyday predicaments never diminish the pain they carry or the pressure they feel to provide a brighter future. “Life is good now,” Devi tells her therapist in an early episode. “And I can basically forget about all that bad stuff that happened before.”

Clearly it’s not that simple, but Devi does fill her days with sufficient distraction. She stays on top in school to beat lifelong frenemy Ben (Jaren Lewison) — despite claims that he’s her nemesis, we’ll be damned if these two don’t have a chemistry destined to be buds. Even the plan to lose her virginity to Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet) seems impossibly attainable, and Devi finds herself at more than one bumpin’ high school party where illicit substances and touching are very much on the table.

In her debut performance, Ramakrishnan is nothing short of a gift. Devi is far from the perfect daughter that Nalini craves (and Kamala seemingly is). She’s angry, selfish, hotheaded, and rude. She sustains painful physical injuries (we’re talkin’ blood) in each of the first three episodes due to rash or erratic behavior. She disparages her own culture, yells at her mom, unleashes some practically poetic insults upon Ben, but in the hands of this actress and these writers, we never leave her corner.

Between Devi, Kamala, and Nalini, the show releases any individual character from having to represent millions of Americans and billions of Indians.

Under Kaling’s supervision, Never Have I Ever is both culturally authentic and comedic gold. It’s an alchemy that she’s spent almost 15 years honing in Hollywood, often to mixed reviews. The Mindy Project came under early fire for Kaling’s lead character dating mostly white men, and rarely if ever engaging with her Indian heritage. But such was the character, and frankly such was the TV climate into which the show debuted. 

Never Have I Ever, luxuriating in the rich Netflix library of 2020 and alongside the successes and missteps of Kaling and many peers before her, shines from the start. Between Devi, Kamala, and Nalini, the show releases any individual character from having to represent millions of Americans and billions of Indians. It has the time and the platform to subvert casual Indian stereotypes (vegetarianism, arranged marriage), while making that a mere facet of Devi’s journey to self-actualization — a part of her that matures in tandem with her relationships to friends, boys, school, and family.

Many will praise Never Have I Ever for its skillful representation (this review included), which isn’t entirely fair to the less-visible characters and pieces of media that preceded it. But Kaling and Netflix’s clout is undeniable, and their care is evident throughout the series. Perhaps this is the point where we don’t praise successful Indian-American stories and characters, but raise the bar to a point where we never have to lower it again.

Never Have I Ever is now streaming on Netflix.