Student of the Year: After Dark Review Roundup: Critics Split, but Shanaya Kapoor’s Double Role Wins Praise
The reviews are in for Student of the Year: After Dark, and they agree on exactly one thing: Shanaya Kapoor. The six-episode JioHotstar series, which premiered on November 13, has split critics down the middle — most landing at 3.5 out of 5, one outlet going as low as 2. India Forums, IWMBuzz and Cine-Tales all gave the series 3.5 out of 5, Jay-Ho called it a promising OTT debut, and K Waves and Beyond scored it 2 out of 5. The Hollywood Reporter India’s Suchin Mehrotra was harshest, calling it a microdrama masquerading as a streaming series: “less juicy psychological thriller and more psychological chillar”.
The series takes the glossy St. Teresa’s campus of Karan Johar’s 2012 film and turns it into a murder mystery. Created by Reema Maya and Debashish Irengbam and directed by Maya for Dharmatic Entertainment, it opens with the mysterious death of Aayesha Malik, one of the school’s most popular students, and follows her twin sister Aditi as the investigation collides with an underground survival contest. Shanaya Kapoor plays both twins — Aayesha and Aditi — alongside Divik Sharma, Manya Grover, Mannat Duggal, Deeya Damini, Sheeba Chaddha and Harsh Chhaya. Achint Thakkar’s score supplies much of the energy across the six episodes.
Where the critics diverge is the writing, not the star. India Forums calls Shanaya “the surprise package” and the show’s biggest strength, praising how she separates the twins’ contrasting personalities, while IWMBuzz calls her “the heart and soul of this series”. THR India, by contrast, finds the Squid Game-style contest promising but undone by shoddy action, stale dynamics and too much explanatory voiceover. Cine-Tales lands in the middle: the final reveal is genuinely surprising and among the show’s strongest moments, but the slow opening episodes and uneven writing hold it back.
Here is the Filmverse take: a franchise reboot that pleases almost no one completely and disappoints almost no one completely is, in its own way, a success. The 2012 original was a glossy campus romance; this one is a murder mystery with a death in the opening minutes, and that tonal gamble is exactly what the divided reviews are arguing about. What matters for Shanaya Kapoor, making her OTT debut, is that the one point of consensus is her: even the harshest review concedes the double role is the reason to watch. Our streaming report: https://filmverse.in/student-of-the-year-after-dark-streams-today-jiohotstar-shanaya-kapoor-double-role/
Watch the official trailer below:
Student of the Year: After Dark is streaming now on JioHotstar.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter India, India Forums, IWMBuzz, Cine-Tales, Jay-Ho and K Waves and Beyond.
Team Filmverse
Filmverse is an independent entertainment news desk covering Bollywood and Indian cinema — news, trailers, reviews and box office, published daily from Mumbai.
