Why Watch Shiva Baby?

Shiva Baby deserves attention because it transforms an anxiety-inducing premise into a masterclass of controlled chaos, using thriller techniques to tell a comedy about identity crisis. The 77-minute film achieves what many longer productions cannot: sustained tension that feels both deeply uncomfortable and oddly cathartic.

A Remarkable Debut Achievement

Emma Seligman directed Shiva Baby at 24 years old with a budget of approximately $200,000, yet the film earned a 97% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 147 critics. This represents an unusual success story for micro-budget independent cinema. The filmmaker adapted her own 8-minute NYU thesis short into a feature that premiered at SXSW 2020 and won the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award in 2022.

The production constraints became creative advantages. Shot almost entirely in one house over a condensed schedule, cinematographer Maria Rusche and editor Hanna Park created a claustrophobic atmosphere that serves the story’s themes. Seligman studied thrillers like Krisha and Cassavetes films to understand how to maintain tension within spatial limitations, and that research shows in every frame.

What makes this achievement particularly notable is Seligman’s age and inexperience. Most debut features from 24-year-old directors feel tentative or unformed. Shiva Baby demonstrates confidence in its choices, from the decision to set the entire film at a shiva to the commitment to real-time storytelling. Critics repeatedly described feeling surprised that this was a first feature, with The Playlist noting it was “astounding this is Seligman’s first film, [considering] how masterfully she orchestrates the tension and comedy.”

The Performance That Launches Careers

Rachel Sennott carries the film with a performance that balances vulnerability and sharp wit. The camera rarely leaves her face, making this essentially a one-person show where every micro-expression matters. Sennott plays Danielle as simultaneously charming and self-destructive, never asking for sympathy but earning it through authenticity.

Sennott’s background in comedy (she was making sketch videos at NYU) gives her timing precision, but her dramatic instincts prevent the character from becoming a caricature. When Danielle spirals, Sennott shows the spiral without telegraphing it. Her physical comedy—the way she shrinks in crowded rooms, how she holds plates of food she never eats as shields—communicates Danielle’s interior state without dialogue.

The supporting cast enriches rather than overshadows. Polly Draper and Fred Melamed as Danielle’s parents avoid Jewish parent stereotypes while still feeling culturally specific. Molly Gordon’s Maya represents everything Danielle fears she isn’t, but Gordon plays her with enough insecurity that the comparison never feels one-dimensional. Dianna Agron’s Kim could have been a villain; instead, she’s another woman trapped by different expectations.

This ensemble dynamic matters because Shiva Baby isn’t really about a single catastrophic event. It’s about the accumulation of small humiliations, the death by a thousand paper cuts that family gatherings can inflict. Every actor understands this assignment.

Sound as a Weapon of Anxiety

Ariel Marx’s score functions like a character in the film, using staccato strings and dissonant piano to create what Stephen Saito called “Marx’s version of the Jaws theme.” The music doesn’t just accompany scenes—it actively works against the viewer’s comfort.

Traditional comedy scoring aims for lightness or uses silence for timing. Marx does the opposite, treating every interaction as potentially dangerous. When Danielle’s mother introduces her to Max, the strings intensify. When the baby cries (which happens frequently, adding to the sonic chaos), the score doesn’t pause—it compounds. The effect resembles John Carpenter’s horror work more than typical indie comedy soundtracks.

This choice transforms familiar situations into surreal experiences. A buffet table becomes a gauntlet. Bathroom encounters feel like ambushes. The music tells your body to prepare for threat even when the threat is just another nosy question from Aunt Susan. By the film’s climax, Marx has trained you to associate string plucks with emotional danger, making every note land with impact.

The score works because Marx and Seligman understand that horror and comedy share structural DNA. Both genres manipulate audience expectations and release tension through surprise. Horror uses screams; comedy uses laughter. Shiva Baby suggests these aren’t opposing responses but adjacent ones, both emerging from the same discomfort with being seen.

Technical Precision on a Micro Budget

The film’s $200,000 budget forced creative problem-solving that elevated the final product. Production designer Cheyenne Ford transformed a single house into a believably lived-in space without the resources for elaborate sets. The solution involved careful attention to authentic Jewish household details—the right food on the buffet, appropriate artwork, realistic clutter.

Rusche’s cinematography uses shallow focus and close-ups to create intimacy that borders on intrusion. The camera often positions itself too close to Danielle’s face, mimicking how she feels about the people crowding her. Wide shots are rare and usually emphasize how trapped she is by bodies and expectations. This visual strategy would work in any space, but the single-location constraint made it essential rather than optional.

Editor Park structured the film to remove breathing room. Scenes transition without establishing shots or momentary pauses. One interaction flows directly into another, building cumulative pressure. Park studied how Uncut Gems maintained relentless pacing, applying those principles to a much smaller canvas. The result makes 77 minutes feel longer in the best way—not boring, but exhausting in a manner that serves the protagonist’s experience.

These technical achievements happened because the team lacked resources to solve problems with money. They couldn’t shoot in multiple locations or take their time with coverage. Those limitations forced precision and creativity that expensive films often lack.

Cultural Specificity as Universal Language

Shiva Baby depicts Jewish mourning rituals and family dynamics with loving detail, yet audiences consistently report finding it relatable regardless of background. This apparent paradox reveals something important about how cultural specificity can create rather than limit connection.

The film doesn’t explain Jewish customs or apologize for inside jokes. It trusts that viewers will understand emotional dynamics even if they don’t know Yiddish or recognize every tradition. When Danielle’s weight loss prompts the comment “You look like Gwyneth Paltrow on food stamps—and not in a good way,” non-Jewish audiences laugh because they recognize the backhanded compliment structure, even if this particular formulation feels culturally specific.

Seligman, raised in Toronto’s Jewish community, drew from direct experience. The shivas she attended as a teenager—including ones for people she didn’t know—provided the film’s foundation. Her authenticity allows the humor to feel affectionate rather than mocking. The gossipy aunts are stereotypes, but they’re stereotypes drawn with enough nuance that they become individuals.

The film’s bisexual representation works similarly. Danielle’s relationship with Maya isn’t treated as exceptional or requiring explanation. It’s simply part of who Danielle is, existing alongside her sugar baby work and her gender studies major. By refusing to make queerness the story’s focus while still making it visible, Shiva Baby normalizes LGBTQ+ identity in ways that feel organic rather than performative.

Why Discomfort Deserves Your Time

Many reviews warn that Shiva Baby isn’t for viewers who experience secondhand embarrassment strongly. This warning misses the point. The discomfort is precisely why the film matters.

We live in an age of curated identities and compartmentalized lives. Social media encourages us to present different versions of ourselves to different audiences, never letting those versions collide. Shiva Baby dramatizes what happens when those compartments explode, forcing Danielle to confront all her identities simultaneously in a space she can’t escape.

This scenario resonates because it’s fundamentally about the gap between who we are and who we perform being. Danielle works as a sugar baby but tells her parents she babysits. She studies gender studies but can’t articulate what she’ll do with the degree. She left Maya but clearly hasn’t processed that relationship. The shiva becomes the crucible where all these contradictions must coexist.

The film doesn’t offer easy resolutions. Danielle doesn’t have a breakthrough moment where she “figures herself out.” Instead, she survives. The ending suggests possibility without promising transformation. This honest ambiguity makes the discomfort meaningful rather than just unpleasant. You’re not watching someone suffer for voyeuristic pleasure—you’re watching someone confront the messy reality of becoming an adult.

The Film’s Cultural Impact

Shiva Baby became the most-watched film on Mubi in 2021 and maintained that position through year’s end. It ran for a record-breaking 16 consecutive weeks at New York’s Quad Cinema. These numbers matter because they demonstrate audience appetite for challenging independent cinema that trusts viewers’ intelligence.

The film launched Sennott into higher-profile work, including HBO’s “The Idol” and Seligman’s follow-up “Bottoms.” It proved that micro-budget films could achieve critical and commercial success by committing fully to a specific vision rather than trying to appeal to everyone. The Cassavetes Award recognition validated this approach within the independent film community.

HBO developed a television pilot based on Shiva Baby’s premise, though it hasn’t proceeded to series. This interest from traditional media suggests the film identified something culturally resonant about millennial anxiety and identity formation. The potential expansion also acknowledges that the film’s 77-minute runtime leaves audiences wanting more time with these characters.

Critically, Shiva Baby appeared on numerous year-end best-of lists for both 2020 (its festival debut) and 2021 (its theatrical release). It showed up on lists for best independent films, best debuts, best comedies, best Jewish films, and best LGBTQ+ films. This cross-category recognition indicates the film defies easy categorization while succeeding on multiple levels.

What the Film Gets Right About Post-College Anxiety

Danielle’s crisis feels painfully current. She’s finishing college with a degree that doesn’t translate obviously to career paths. She’s pressured by parents who want her to have direction while she’s still figuring out what she wants. She’s experimenting with sexuality and power dynamics through sex work that gives her temporary control but no lasting stability.

This portrait of quarterlife uncertainty rings true because Seligman experienced versions of it herself. The director has been honest about struggling with self-worth and direction during her NYU years, about knowing people who worked as sugar babies, about feeling trapped between who her community expected her to be and who she was becoming.

The film captures how family gatherings amplify these anxieties. Every question about your future, every comparison to more successful peers, every disappointed look from a parent becomes magnified. The shiva setting is genius because it combines the obligation to stay with the social requirement to be pleasant despite grief. Danielle can’t leave and can’t be honest, creating perfect conditions for sustained psychological pressure.

What Seligman understands is that this pressure doesn’t necessarily lead to growth. Sometimes you just survive it. Sometimes surviving is enough. The film’s refusal to provide easy answers or growth-through-adversity narratives makes it more honest than most coming-of-age stories.

Why 77 Minutes Matters

The runtime deserves specific attention. In an era where streaming services encourage bloat and theatrical releases regularly exceed two hours, Shiva Baby’s efficiency stands out. Every scene serves multiple purposes. No interaction exists just for atmosphere—though atmosphere accumulates as a byproduct.

This discipline reflects the short film origins. Seligman had already told this story in 8 minutes, so she knew what was essential. Expanding to 77 minutes meant adding depth without padding. The feature includes Maya (absent from the short), Kim and the baby (absent from the short), and more complex family dynamics. But it never loses the short’s propulsive urgency.

The brevity also serves the real-time conceit. Shivas don’t last forever, and neither should this film. By ending when the shiva ends, Seligman maintains the pressure vessel effect. If the film continued beyond this timeframe, it would need to shift modes and lose intensity. Instead, it stops precisely when it should, leaving you wrung out but wanting more—which is the ideal response.

Technical Elements Working in Concert

Great films succeed when all elements support the same vision. Shiva Baby demonstrates this unity of purpose across every department.

Ford’s production design grounds the fantastical elements in reality. The house feels like an actual bubbe’s home, which makes the surreal social dynamics believable. Rusche’s cinematography uses the house’s architecture to create visual traps—doorways frame Danielle like she’s pinned, hallways offer no escape routes, the crowded living room becomes a maze. Park’s editing removes safety valves, never giving you or Danielle a moment to reset. Marx’s score turns everyday interactions into psychological warfare.

The costume design by Michelle J. Li deserves mention. Danielle’s outfit—the infamous “Jewish deli couture” referenced in the poster—walks the line between trying to look put-together and not quite succeeding. It’s dressy enough for the occasion but not comfortable, mirroring Danielle’s entire experience. Maya looks effortlessly polished, Kim looks expensive and exhausted, Max looks like he hasn’t noticed he’s about to be exposed. Every character’s appearance tells you who they’re trying to be.

The baby, Rose, functions almost as a special effect. The constant crying provides sonic chaos without the score needing to push as hard. The baby’s presence reminds everyone of Max’s family life, making his relationship with Danielle impossible to ignore. Babies at religious services are normal, but this baby’s timing and volume feel almost supernatural, like the universe is exposing Max through his own child.

All these elements work because everyone involved understood the assignment: create sustained discomfort in service of a story about identity fracturing under social pressure. There’s no element that works against this goal or tries to soften it.

Shiva Baby works because it commits fully to its discomfort. It’s a comedy that uses horror techniques, a cultural story with universal resonance, and a micro-budget film with macro ambitions. Emma Seligman directs with the confidence of someone making their tenth film, and Rachel Sennott delivers the kind of performance that makes people remember your name. At 77 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome while still leaving a lasting impression.

The film understands something essential: sometimes the most honest stories are the most uncomfortable ones. Watching Danielle spiral through this shiva won’t make you feel good, exactly, but it will make you feel something genuine. In a media landscape full of calculated content designed to avoid offense, that genuine discomfort becomes valuable. It reminds you that cinema can challenge you without punishing you, that anxiety on screen can lead to catharsis in your seat.

If you’ve ever felt trapped at a family gathering, if you’ve ever maintained multiple identities that can’t coexist, if you’ve ever watched your carefully constructed persona crumble in real time, this film will resonate. If you haven’t experienced those things, it will show you what they feel like with uncomfortable accuracy. Either way, you’ll remember it—and in an age of forgettable content, that alone makes it worth watching.