NEVER HAVE I EVER

“Never have I ever” is a coming-of-age series created by Mindy Kaling (The Office, Ocean's 8) and since its premiere on April 2020, it’s available on Netflix. This comedy-drama is based on Kaling’s childhood, although it’s not an autobiographical series. Mindy tries to show another side of students with good grades. As she said “Nerds are not only the wallflowers and the quiet ones, we’re ambitious, we have obnoxious personalities sometimes, we want to have sex and dream like all the other kids.”

Source: teenvogue.com

The series shows life of Devi, who wants to live a modern life and be popular, but it is not easy with her background. After migrating with her family from India to the United States, she grew up as just another American. Despite of getting very good grades she had social problems due to her ambition and temper. The accident at a school concert, during which her father died because of a heart attack and she lost mobility in her legs, changed completely her life. After months of being in a wheelchair, she regains mobility and decides, together with her friends, to be a different person in the new school year. That’s why she asks gods to change everything bad that happened. The first thing that she asks for is to be able to attend the parties organized by her classmates. Secondly, she wants a boyfriend.

Source: nytimes.com

This series really surprised me, because I expected another predictable comedy for teenagers with stereotypic characters. Instead of it, there are some interesting characters like Devi, Ben and Paxton. Ben (the only white main character) is a nerd and Devi's direct rival. He is also a lonely, wealthy boy with a huge and empty house. The chapter dedicated to Ben is the best of the entire series. Paxton, a popular kid and handsome sportsman always surrounded by friends, lives in an ordinary middle-class house and has a sister with down syndrome. With a perfectly selected young cast that includes the debutant actress Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, chosen in an open casting among more than fifteen thousand applicants to play the intelligent, sensitive, funny and witty Devi, the series celebrates diversity and above all complex identity of a young woman willing to be the heroine of her own fairy tale.

Mindy Kaling also reflects in the series the Indian culture and makes a criticism of it, showing how this culture has persecuted the protagonists and decisions they have made, like for example arranged marriage. 

In general, it’s lightweight and funny series. Despite its clichés, that have been seen over and over again in other teenage series, it fulfills the task of entertaining in its 10 episodes.