Suchin Mehrotra reviews Student Of The Year: After Dark, Dharmatic Entertainment’s six-episode spin-off of Karan Johar’s 2012 film, for The Hollywood Reporter India. Created by Reema Maya and Debashish Irengbam, the JioHotstar series stars Shanaya Kapoor as twins Aditi and Ayesha. When Ayesha is found dead, Aditi enrols at her sister’s elite boarding school to investigate, only to discover a secret competition involving dangerous tasks and life-threatening stakes. The cast also includes Manya Grover, Divik Sharma, Abhinav Singh, Deeya Damini and Vivek Gomber.
Suchin finds a microdrama masquerading as a streaming series, driven by breathless twists, confrontations and shock value, with little coherence connecting its scenes or episodes. The murder mystery’s collision with a Squid Game-style survival contest offers a few promising ideas, but shoddy action, stale character dynamics and an overreliance on explanatory voiceover keep them from coming to life. Shanaya’s performance and Aditi’s thin characterisation make the show difficult to invest in, while Achint Thakkar’s throbbing score supplies energy the storytelling cannot sustain. Even as an intentionally unhinged guilty pleasure, Suchin finds the series tiring. The THR Bottomline: less juicy psychological thriller and more psychological chillar. Student Of The Year: After Dark is streaming on JioHotstar.