Shiva Baby

Anxiety as depicted in movies can be a rather fascinating experience to watch for a variety of reasons. If it's a suspenseful thriller or a horror flick, it can add to the stakes the protagonists are facing to overcome. The manner of anxiety can provide excuses for filmmakers can add hallucinations or bring about nightmares for characters to undergo. This brings us to an independent comedy-drama that focuses on this topic, Shiva Baby, which was written and directed by Emma Seligman in her filmmaking debut. This was brought to my attention from a quick review of a YouTube content creator who watched it at a film festival (in this case, Adam Johnson from YourMovieSucksDotOrg). I went in blind with this low budget hoping to see if it can bring something different from what I've been watching lately and after finishing via renting on Amazon, it ended up being one of the most impressively tense and awkward viewings I've experienced in the best way possible. 

What's it about? Taking place at a shiva (a mourning event in the Jewish community), the story follows a directionless young woman trying to hide her secrets from those around her. What makes this intriguing is how we aren't given much of a backstory on her present situation except that she's in her own rut and it's more about how she presents herself publicly to family friends. It's aiming for the notion of feeling embarrassed for being in a stage of life that contrasts to public expectation, which is handled very well. The awkwardness that escalates feels hilariously realistic as unexpected revelations are made and the nervous state the protagonist finds herself in gets uncomfortable. The claustrophobic directing provides that all too familiar feeling of being trapped in between surrounding conversations as you feel like the personal standings to individuals are in a flux. The interactions between these characters are simple but engaging to watch unfold in terms of the dynamics.

If there was any issues to be found with this story, it's that a few more scenes with a side character or two could have been added as the runtime left wanting just a bit more for it to feel a bit more complete.

 

How are the actors? In regards to story importance, the actors to focus on are Rachel Sennott, Molly Gordon, and Danny Deferarri. Rachel gives great performance in this lead role that demands variety in showing a positive face on the outside in public with relatable awkward nervous mannerisms. Molly and Danny are pretty good in delivering their respective dynamics with Rachel and land memorable enough impressions for their parts. Honorable mentions Polly Draper and Fred Melamed with the former doing well in the high strung mother portrayal while the latter is just delightful in his lighter personality contrasting with how tense the other plot characters are. 

 

Overall Consensus: Shiva Baby is an impressive anxiety driven character focused comedy-drama that's thrives off its great performances, wonderful directing, and realistic interactions. ⭑⭑⭑⭑1/2🍿 Runtime: 1 hour 21 minutes R

 

Reasons to watch it: You are a fan of the aforementioned actors. You are in the mood for an uncomfortable tense comedy that will you feel a bit claustrophobic. You like narratives where young women are feeling pressure from others that expect them to be in better phases of their own lives instead of where they are now. You want to see how a Jewish community is portrayed on the big screen from a director of that same religion. You are interested in low budget character focused plots. 

 

Reasons to avoid it: You aren't a fan of the aforementioned actors. You aren't in the mood for an uncomfortable tense comedy. You aren't interested in low budget character focused plots.