Shiva Baby: A Sharp-Witted Comedy With A Commanding Lead Performance
Writer/director Emma Seligman makes her feature film debut with the incisive comedy, Shiva Baby. Elevated by Rachel Sennott’s commanding lead performance and teeming with palpably anxious energy, Seligman’s assured hands skillfully craft an unforgettable chamber piece about growing up, full of awkwardness, tension, and hilarity.
While at a Jewish funeral service with her parents, a college student, Danielle (Rachel Sennott), has an awkward encounter with her sugar daddy and her ex-girlfriend.
Emma Seligman’s cleverly crafted debut feature, Shiva Baby — not to be confused with the Pam Grier vehicle, Sheba, Baby — is a delightfully squirmy, character-driven chamber piece with notes of Krisha, mother!, Rosemary’s Baby, and early Woody Allen. A brisk and breathless 77 minutes, Shiva Baby loads its simple premise with just the right amount of complexity, twisting and tangling its characters in awkward situations, which grow funnier and funnier with each new development. Seligman revels in the winding discomfort of the narrative, creating a palpable atmosphere of anxiety, tension, and claustrophobia that feed directly into the film’s awkward comedy, whilst successfully placing viewers squarely in the shoes of its protagonist.
Set almost exclusively in one location, the film takes place over the course of one day during a shiva, the week-long mourning period in Judaism for first-degree relatives, and centers around Danielle, a college senior struggling to cope with her post-graduate imminence. When she’s not studying for her degree in “gender business,” Danielle works as an escort — even though she’s comfortably supported by her parents, who believe she’s only “babysitting.” Her secret second life faces potential exposure when her sugar daddy, Max, and her high school friend Maya, with whom she has a checkered past of “funny business,” shows up to the shiva. And as if things weren’t squeamish enough, Max is a former colleague of Danielle’s father, and he also brought along his wife and baby. As the shiva progresses, Danielle battles her growing anxiety, while she juggles all her lies, trying not to collapse under the pressure or the growing suspicions of Max’s wife.
We are with Danielle every step of the way, and we feel her sense of social drowning as she flounders between prying relatives, tell-all parents, a past romance and a current flame. Her character is fully realized through Rachel Sennott’s incredible breakout performance. Sennott makes Danielle’s anxiety and social unease deeply felt; it’s as if she’s slowly suffocating but desperately trying to play it cool. The cinematography from Maria Rusche emphasizes Danielle’s perspective, mirroring her anxiety and creating a growing sense of claustrophobia that constricts her. Seligman’s direction also makes good use of close-ups, shallow focus, and handheld to further externalize Danielle’s discomfort and synchronize the viewer with her frequency.
The film’s terrific score from Ariel Marx is also a standout. Full of sharp, stabbing plucks and uneasy string swells, Marx’s compositions are cut straight from the cloth of horror film, but they feel right at home in this distinctly quirky comedy. Like the film’s cinematography, Marx’s score also serves as an externalization of Danielle’s interior feelings. Her nervous and twitchy arrangements also help ratchet the tension and contribute to the film’s claustrophobic squeeze.
Accessibly cultural, Shiva Baby finds universality in its awkward comedy and flawed, yet relatable central figure. Although it occasionally moves in an odd direction, the film never loses its footing or outstays its welcome, and it finds the perfect send-off to Danielle’s stressful tale. It fuses the clever, female-driven comedy of Booksmart with the anxiety-inducing tension and claustrophobic cinematography of the Safdie Brothers’ Good Time and Uncut Gems into a winning combination that illuminates two bright young talents on the rise. Keep an eye on Seligman and Sennott; they’re only going to do bigger and more exciting things.
Recommendation: Definitely give this one a watch when it drops on VOD on April 2nd.
Rating: 4 finger foods outta 5.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!