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| Writer/director Emma Seligman |
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| actress/producer Rachel Sennott |
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| Seligman with Rachel Sennott |
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| Seligman with ensemble cast |
SHIVA BABY B Canada USA (77 mi) 2020 ‘Scope d: Emma Seligman
Seligman is a Canadian filmmaker raised in a Reform Ashkenazi Jewish community in Toronto, who contributed film reviews as a teenager to The Huffington Post before attending NYU Film School, where her short thesis film, Shiva Baby (2018) YouTube (7:40), starring the same actress, was expanded into her first feature film, kind of a Jewish Finnegan’s Wake, updated into a contemporary world of The Graduate (1967), while delving into the delirium of Darren Aronofsky. Rachel Sennott stars as Danielle, a bisexual woman who has nearly graduated from college, with only unanswered questions about her future, accompanying her parents to a day-long shiva, a Jewish wake, revealing a series of awkward and embarrassing events that only draw attention to her own growing insecurities, accentuated by the unexpected presence of Maya (Molly Gordon), an old flame who is mischievously intriguing, and Max (Danny Deferrar), an older man she sees frequently for paid sexual encounters. While some of the same dialogue exists in both versions, mixing elements of comedic farce with moments of unanticipated terror, the day worsens, becoming a nightmarish depiction of a traditional Jewish ritual featuring rapid-fire dialogue, painfully subversive Jewish humor, and outlandish confrontations regarding her own burgeoning sexuality, which remains clouded under cover of cultural orthodoxy, yet threatens to be exposed at any minute, with her hovering mother (Polly Draper) who never gives her the space she needs, continually jabbering in her ear not to do anything rash, perhaps most afraid her bisexuality may cause a scene, in other words, don’t embarrass the family, all playing out in real time as they help themselves to the buffet table. While this is one of the more absurdly cinematic representations of American Judaism, many may be caught offguard by the aggressive unpleasantness of the experience, invoking a mocking tone of irreverence while mixing in a heavy dose of existential horror and dread, accentuated by the anxiety-ridden musical score of Ariel Marx and a sound design that heightens an impending sense of dread. Inspired by the building of claustrophobia and tension in Cassavetes’ Opening Night (1977), especially the effect it had upon Gena Rowlands, yet also Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto (2013), with Seligman indicating “I’ve never seen a film so accurately portray the suffocating and debilitating nature of young female insecurities.” Using that as a guideline, her mantra for making this film was written on her desk, “I want other young women to feel heard in their insecurities that have been inflicted upon them.” Injecting the absurdly comical tone of the Coen brother’s A Serious Man (2009), a wildly irreverent take on the Book of Job and the Jewish bar mitzvah, which Seligman transfers here to a family shiva, where mourners stuff themselves on bagels and rugelach while catching up on the latest family gossip. Seligman mines the territory for underlying humor, calculatingly playing with stereotypes while planting the seeds of existential turmoil, which only escalate into fertile grounds for emotional explosions taking place inside the lead character of Danielle, who moves from one emotional bombshell to the next. Mirroring the endless travails of Job, the director employs humor as a self-defense mechanism, which has long been the prerogative of Jewish comedians, invoking their own specific comedic dialect, protecting them against anti-Semitism and an often-threatening world, frequently focusing on their personal problems, while almost always containing a strong element of alienation. To her parents, she’s something of a disappointment, as all the other girls her age are entering grad school or having babies, so they prep Danielle about what to say as she lies about nonexistent job prospects that are only a fantasy in her mind. A study in sustained tension, the film captures the pressures of mounting internal uncertainties, including her indecisiveness and lack of direction, feeling stuck in time, surrounded by insufferable guests who offer ill-advised and unrequested advise, much like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, transformed to a twentysomething bisexual Jewish college senior without a major, something she can’t actually define, yet she’s incessantly questioned about it, seemingly answering differently with each inquiry, though her only solid form of employment, supposedly, is “babysitting,” a conveniently safe term to cover up for her promiscuous sexual activity.
Sex work dressed up in the language of female empowerment is an edgy aspect of modern feminism, and a surprisingly common activity among female college students, both in Great Britain, Europe, and America (What Student Sex Workers Want You To Know - Refinery29), as it’s a way to earn steady income to offset the obscene costs of rising rentals and college expenses, often latching onto a safe and steady man known as a sugar daddy for their revenue stream, setting up appointments via online apps, as previously highlighted in Jacques Audiard’s 2021 Top Ten List #6 Paris, 13th District (Les Olympiades, Paris 13e). The leading website is Seeking, formerly SeekingArrangement, initially a website seeking sugar daddies (NYU is one of the top schools on the website), now a mainstream dating site, with over 40 million users, available in 130 countries. While registering is free, you won’t be able to contact other members without paying for their platform (Seeking Arrangement Review: Does It Work in 2022? We Tried It). Of note, in 2012 when the Republican Convention was in Tampa, Florida, the site saw a 26% increase in site users. Even the director joined the website for one date, “It just wasn’t for me,” she says. “I’m not cut out for it.” With a budget of around $200,000, shot over 16 pre-Covid days in August 2019, the film is shot almost entirely at one specific location, with cinematographer Maria Rusche largely using handheld cameras to accentuate the claustrophobic confinement of the event, using ‘Scope to capture additional characters within the same frame. Either ignored or excluded from commercial theaters, this will more likely be seen on streaming services, where even regular television shows will receive far greater exposure and hype. Featuring a wordy script, with a heavy accent on stereotypical Jewish characters, an overbearing mother (Polly Draper), a completely oblivious father (Fred Melamed), both making excuses about the ambivalence of her career choices, the film becomes a cringeworthy intersection of hyped parental expectations colliding with the indifference of youth, as Danielle hasn’t got a clue what her future holds, yet she moves from one distant relative to the next, each asking the same questions about what she intends to do, why she doesn’t have a boyfriend, even inferring she may have an eating disorder, all making her sink into her inner sanctum of immediately changing the subject and finding some trivial task to perform, moving from room to room, as she seeks to escape from the continual pressure of judgmental family evaluations. In a choreography of spectacularly uncomfortable moments, Danielle has no real connection to the deceased, or to most of the relatives packed into such tight quarters, instantly feeling suffocated, particularly when she realizes Max is there, the same man she was with in the opening of the film faking an orgasm in his overly spacious SoHo bachelor pad, who suddenly realizes she’s not an aspiring entrepreneur moonlighting in sex work to help get her through law school, and suddenly her private affairs are on full public display, about to be exposed, forcing her to lie through her teeth and endure the wrath of guilt and humiliation in this savage satire of existential embarrassment. Reinforced by an atonal musical score that offers no relief, underscoring her rapidly increasing anxiety at every turn, this is a comedy of errors that only grows more dizzyingly out of control, a carefully choreographed slow death by paper cuts, with the world caving in all around her, leaving her no avenue of escape. The presence of Maya, who is a showcase of success, heading for law school, the picture of every parent’s dreams, yet she’s also her life support, as this is a person she genuinely cares about, not even remembering why or how they ever separated, having mixed emotions that she’s forced to restrain, and then Max’s staggeringly successful wife arrives, Kim (Dianna Agron), described as a shiksa princess wife, dazzlingly beautiful, the epitome of corporate feminism, running multiple business enterprises, hideously described by Danielle as a “girlboss,” feeling small in comparison, yet she’s brought with her their inconsolable crying baby, whose piercing screams send her into a panicked distress, a recurring motif incorporated into a soundtrack of anxiety.
Something should be said about Rachel Sennott, as she literally carries the picture, utterly flabbergasted in an escalating series of exasperating moments, little by little losing every shred of dignity left, as her protective shield of lies leaves her squirming in disbelief, wondering how she ever found herself in this situation, yet she soldiers on from one mishap to the next, at times defiant, yet also utterly defeated. Raised to believe she could do anything, she is nonetheless entitled, yet extremely relatable, coddled and pampered at every turn by well-off suburban parents who continually raise the bar on what to expect, where weddings and funerals and shivas are public opportunities for parents to sing the praises of their children, like listing a menu of delicious entrees, each one more delectable than the next, all paraded for public consumption, reminiscent of the scene in Mary Harron’s American Psycho (2000) where young executives pull out their business cards, each trying to outdo the other in a fiercely competitive field. Yet something’s changed from the older generation to now, as the great jobs and careers that used to provide lifelong security in their lifetimes have dried up and disappeared, leaving slim pickings for the younger generation, who are offered temp work instead, with fewer benefits, even with college degrees, which no longer seem to matter, resulting in multiple career changes, something their parents simply don’t understand. While trying to process everything that’s going on, Danielle’s constantly barraged by questions about her life, subject to scrutiny of an intensely personal nature, not something easily done in a room full of what feels like strangers, family that she has little to no contact with except for these seemingly officiated occasions, with the heads of the family holding court, all projecting wildly ambitious dreams through their children, spreading the word about the juiciest family gossip, leaving her feeling useless and insignificant in an interplanetary cosmos of moving planets. Even Maya gets in on the game of needling her, seemingly enjoying her personal misery, but she also offers her a lifeline in a momentary reprieve, sharing a kiss out of prying eyes, yet also a reminder of just what she’s missing. A scathing commentary on contemporary Jewish life in America, Seligman has a deft hand in how this all plays out, using precise camera positioning and meticulously realized long takes, where everything that happens is seen through the eyes of Danielle, like an obstacle course of harrowing moments, a smorgasbord of unpleasantries, moving from room to room in a psychologically and emotionally shattering experience, with viewers subjected to a marathon of carnage left behind, becoming a subversive take on the limits of feminism and freedom, as her breakdown reflects the alienating consequences of social judgment, and is a direct consequence of the policing of her bodily autonomy by other people. Key to the film’s understanding is her evolving relationship with Max, who turns out to be a former employee of her father that quickly turns the tables on her, his ballbusting wife Kim, who picks up on her husband’s philandering and goes after her with a vengeance, her own parents, making excuses and covering for her at every turn, and finally with Maya, where there is an instant reconnection, perhaps out of desperation, as she juggles her own self-deception and finally comes to terms with her own failures, never living up to the best version of herself, crumbling under the prying eyes of distant family members. Essentially a relationship movie and a quest for discovery, this odyssey of combustible discomfort is only escalated by the crying wails of an innocent baby that completely undercuts her equilibrium, like a house of cards collapsing, where underneath it all are moments of longing and affection for Maya, her saving grace, as if clinging for respectability, yet in such a non-traditional way, the Jewish princess that falls in love, not with Prince Charming, but with another Jewish princess. While there are only subtle references here, queer culture and Jewish culture don’t normally intersect, as Jewish queer representation in film is minimal, as it’s just not the Disney story we’ve all grown up hearing, ingloriously turned on its ear, flying off the radar, treading one’s own path, even if that means shattering parental dreams of that perfect life that they can share at family gatherings, boasting about personal achievements and financial success, giving them bragging rights. This may tamper their expectations, but offer a new reality, an untold story, a new possibility. It’s just a different dream, really, where success is not measured by the size of one’s bank account, but one’s personal happiness. What actually matters seems so simple, but it requires a conscious adjustment of values, an ever-evolving change in the Jewish girl narrative, where challenging films like this may help pave the way.
