'Mismatched' review: A missed opportunity by coming-of-age teenagers

Mismatched (Netflix)
Cast: Prajakta Koli, Rohit Saraf, Rannvijay Singha
Director: Akarsh Khurana, Nipun Dharmadhikari
Rating: 2/5

Netflix’s popular web series ‘Sex Education’ was a hit everywhere. That's probably why co-directors Akarsh Khurana and Nipun Dharmadhikari thought they should make an Indian version of it and name it ‘Mismatched’.

Each episode is narrated by a character in the series. Teenagers are seen living without much parental supervision, driving around the city, doing part-time jobs, indulging in sex, worrying about their physical appearances, drinking alcohol and so on.

In the coming-of-age series, Rishi (Rohit Saraf) is a hopeless romantic and wants to find his “future wife” at the age of 18. Dimple Ahuja (Prajakta Koli) is the lady he fancies, after seeing her photographs during an arranged marriage set-up, except she has no idea her parents signed up for it. Seventeen-year-old Dimple just wants to go to Jaipur and study programming and be a good “gamer chic”. This clash, of course, means that these two start off their relationship on a bad note and somewhere down the line, she will eventually find a liking for him.

To make the characters diverse, there is a bully, a fitness freak, a social media influencer, an NRI, a girl with coloured hair, a boy who is growing bald, an older student, a closeted lesbian and a professor who is too cool to be one. Apart from the build-up of the protagonists falling in love, the character build (even with the voice-over of why a character is a way they are) doesn’t give the audience enough to understand about what’s really going on with them.

Parts of the series promise to keep you hooked but soon fail to do so. In the beginning, Siddharth Sinha (professor played by Rannvijay Singha) announces that students who have created the best app will be rewarded with an internship and the story leads on to show how everyone is working towards that. After a couple of episodes, it somehow becomes a battle to win a video game between two pupils.

The last episode ends with an unexpected twist which just seems like it was put there to create suspense and keep viewers guessing about the announcement of season two.

Nevertheless, the chemistry between Rishi and Dimple was good.

It’s a show you can watch to kill time or if you are a fan of the actors in the series.