Written and directed by Emma Seligman
Starring Rachel Sennott, Molly Gordon, Polly Draper, Fred Melamed, Danny Deferrari, Dianna Agron
Runtime: 1 hour 17 minutes
Not rated, sex, language
Currently available digitally

by Audrey Callerstrom, Staff Writer

Shiva Baby is an exercise in tension, crowding each frame with bodies and overlapping dialogue. With all of the people badgering Danielle (Rachel Sennott) with personal questions, we want to grab her by the shoulder and pull her out onto the sidewalk. But she can’t leave. It’s a shiva, after all, a period of mourning for Danielle’s extended family, although she can’t quite remember who died. Abby, or Annie, or something. Whatever, whoever died was old and probably played bridge with her bubby (something that Danielle fibs that ends up being true). Shiva Baby is maddening, anxiety-inducing, and also very funny.

Danielle’s answers to the probing questions from her relatives changes from moment to moment. Danielle, in her early 20s, is either a recent graduate or she’s studying “media” or “the gender of business” or she supports herself by babysitting. To her sugar daddy, the skeezy Max (Danny Deferrari), Danielle is a law student. In the film’s first scene, Danielle and Max have sex and he hands her money afterward, telling her that he thinks “it’s really good to support females” and that Danielle is “the future.” Danielle tells Max she has “another client” and heads to the shiva accompanied by her parents, Debbie (Polly Draper, Obvious Child) and Joel (Fred Melamed, Lady Dynamite). Draper’s line delivery crackles. Commenting on how thin Danielle looks, Debbie loudly proclaims that Danielle looks like “Gwyneth Paltrow on food stamps!” When Danielle tries to tell people that babysitting helps “pay the bills,” Debbie cackles. “Oh, you’ve never paid a bill in your life!” She’s right. Danielle’s parents pay for her living expenses, and she uses sugar daddies for the rest.

Once Danielle is inside the house where the shiva is being held is when the cringe comedy is in full force. The shiva is awkward enough. Relatives bombard her and she feuds (and reminisces) with ex Maya (Booksmart’s Molly Gordon), who actually is in law school. Then Max unexpectedly shows up to the shiva accompanied by a wife named Kim (Dianna Agron) who Danielle didn’t know about, as well their perpetually crying infant daughter. Shiva Baby is theatre, limited to one location on one day. If this were a theatre production, could people crowd the stage the way they crowd the frame? Sennott is terrific as a sarcastic, adult child. Gordon, proving worthy of bigger roles, is equally funny as Maya. Upon meeting Max, who doesn’t know that Maya and Danielle were lovers, Maya shocks him with the revelation that they were each others prom dates, yes, and then they had sex.

The film follows Danielle through a series of uncomfortable conversations and pratfalls as she tries to maneuver her way between Max, Maya, Kim, the baby, her parents, and her relatives. Danielle’s body casually comes into conversation several times. Relatives repeatedly comment on how much weight she’s lost, and paw at her. When they see her eat, they declare it loudly and joyously. Family members devour food in slow motion through a fisheye lens. One of the best scenes shows Danielle in the center of the frame, stress-eating a bagel while listening to her parents talk and laugh with Max in the background. Shiva Baby is Emma Seligman’s first feature-length film, based on her short film of the same name, also starring Sennott. It’s a tight 77 minutes. Any more would be redundant, or require the film shift to another day, or another location. Shiva Baby is a cringe comedy, but it doesn’t subject its lead to humiliation in vain, nor does it make any moral judgments about her lifestyle. It feels like a throwback to the late ‘90s boom of dark comedies, like Election, The House of Yes, and The Opposite of Sex. When we had a plethora of films like this choose from, original comedies with no marquee stars in them. Much to my delight, Seligman and Sennott already announced a follow-up comedy, Bottoms, which is in production.