Emma Seligman’s “Shiva Baby,” her feature debut, was originally slated to premiere at SXSW this past March. A few days before its world premiere, the COVID-19 virus was declared a pandemic, and every event in the country, including SXSW, was forced to be canceled.
I saw Seligman’s film earlier in the year and was floored by the swirling energy of her camera and the edge-of-the-seat mise en scène. Seligman, who wrote, directed, and co-produced the film, manages to turn a Jewish day of mourning into a frightfully comic treat.
Based on her short of the same name, this impressively choreographed romp opens with Danielle (Rachel Sennott) having sex with older guy Max (Danny Deferrari) at his swanky loft. Although she does get paid after the sex, we come to realize that he is a sort of sugar-daddy for this girl who seems to be in a state of limbo about what to do with her life.
Leaving Max’s loft, Danielle meets up with her parents, Joel (Fred Melamed) and Debbie (Polly Draper), for a shiva, a traditional Jewish post-funeral gathering. As the mourners congregate, Danielle is passed on from family friend to family friend, all of whom want to know: Is she seeing anyone? What is she studying? Oh my god, she’s lost so much weight, is she starving herself? That kind of Jewish-centric neuroticism veers on caricature, but it’s filmed by Seligman, via her handheld camera, with the same kind of housebound realism that Trey Edward Schultz brought to his low-fi masterpiece, “Krisha.”
Things escalate to near-apocalyptic levels of discomfort when in walks Max to the shiva, with his wife and baby in tow. Oy vey. Turns out, Max never told Danielle he had a wife, let alone a newborn, and she obviously, internally at least, loses her mind. To make matters worse, Danielle’s former flame, Booksmart’s Molly Gordon, her high-school sweetheart, enters the fray as well. There’s a lot baggage between the two, between a nasty breakup, unanswered texts, and the looming aura that they might still both have feelings for each other.
Seligman strings up all of these plot points together in confidently precise ways. The millennial angst on display here is accurately portrayed, with the sense of ill-timed discomfort, through some of the most awkward interactions you will see on a screen this year, hilariously on-point. No one said the messy transition to adulthood was going to be easy, but “Shiva Baby” seems to imply that it’s exponentially harder when you come from a upper middle class upbringing and have not just the expectations of your parents to satisfy, but those of their acquaintances as well. There’s something to be said here about tightly knit communities and the unnecessary pressures that they’re often responsible for.
Sennot’s performance is a marvel to behold. It encapsulates the fear and overwhelming anxieties of the college dropout generation. The young actress has an effortless knack for comic and dramatic timing. Ditto the rest of the sprawling cast, especially Polly Draper and Fred Melamed as Danielle’s overbearing parents. Even when the film starts to turn repetitive, despite clocking in at a slim 76 minutes, The energetic passion never lets up and never loses our attention. It’s the feel-bad party of the year and we can’t help but feel grateful for the invite. [B/B+]
It’s been seven years since Alma Har’el’s feature debut, “Honey Boy,” which was written by and starred Shia LaBeouf — she is now set to direct her next film, with a very talented cast.