‘Never Kiss Your Best Friend’ Review

Never Kiss Your Best Friend is an Inglorious Films and Roaring River Productions web series streaming on Zee5.

Sumer Singh Dhillon (Nakuul Mehta) and Tanie Brar (Anya Singh) meet each other after 7 years and both together get nostalgic and go back to their best friends days. The entire show takes place in London, where our leading friends bump into each other for the first time with their pants down literally.

Sumer has bickering father (Rituraj Singh) and a doting mother (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi) whereas Tanie has an overprotective mother (Niki Walia) and coolest father (Vivek Mushran), and both families also get along well contributing in turn for the friendship between Sumer and Tania to blossom.

There is a thin line between friendship and love and it takes almost 10 episodes for Sumer and Tanie to know about this amidst breakups and heartbreaks experienced with their partners.

Anya Singh is at her best with those mascara-ridden eyes which make every expression very lovely and lively. Before her, the histrionics of Nakuul Mehta and whatever hard work he does in portraying a complicated character go unnoticed except in the final episode. Moreover, he overplays in many scenes and his histrionics, though seem to be quite enjoyable in the beginning, become stereotyped as the series progresses causing pain in the neck.

Paloma Monnappa, as Laika, the lady love of Sumer, is so-so in parts but her performance fizzles out in front of Anya Singh who does far better. Lovers of Tanie, Aditya Chugh as Rehaan and Mohit Hiranandani as Kabir, perform well within their characters but it’s Anya who outplays all of them with those cute one-liners with the camera which get clicked really well.

The most happening place London is where all the action is shot and it’s a feast for the eyes to watch the London Eye, the Thames river and the monumental Tower Bridge in their glory. This definitely adds extra flavour to the show, giving it a pleasant and serene look all through. Director of Photography Joosep Jurisson does a commendable job by bringing the bustling beauty of London effectively on to the screen.

The songs give the whole series a Bollywood tinge, particularly the songs of Armaan Malik are truly mesmerizing. Great job by Vishal Mishra for his mellifluous music and Yash Narvekar for his soul-touching lyrics.

The performance of Nakuul Mehta fails to ring any bells. The narration is tad lengthy and directionless. The point which the director Arif Khan wants to convey will not reach out properly due to blotched narration. Though this is an adaptation of the story by Sumrit Shahi by the same name, it fails to connect like many other stories that don’t necessarily look better when they get transformed on to screen and Never Kiss Your Best Friend also joins this club.

Watch it for some eye-catching locales of London and soulful songs. Furthermore, you can try it just for Anya Singh. It might be a refreshing change from all those crime and horror stuff which are at present ruling the digital platforms.