Shi­va Baby

What am I doing with my life? If you’ve ever been kept up at night by this ques­tion, then Emma Seligman’s debut fea­ture Shi­va Baby will strike a chord. At a time when the tra­di­tion­al mark­ers of adult­hood feel more out of reach for young peo­ple than ever, the over­whelm­ing pres­sure to have it all fig­ured out remains. The film tack­les these anx­i­eties head on through its pro­tag­o­nist Danielle (Rachel Sen­nott), a col­lege senior who is drift­ing, grasp­ing for a sense of con­trol over her life.

Devel­oped from Seligman’s short film of the same name, Shi­va Baby takes place over the course of a sin­gle day, fol­low­ing Danielle from her sug­ar dad­dy Max’s (Dan­ny Defer­rari) apart­ment to her aunt Sheila’s (Cil­da Shaur) house, where she joins her par­ents at a shi­va (the Jew­ish post-bur­ial mourn­ing tra­di­tion) for a dis­tant rel­a­tive. Danielle is imme­di­ate­ly unset­tled by the pres­ence of her law school bound ex-girl­friend Maya (Mol­ly Gor­don), whose aca­d­e­m­ic excel­lence only empha­sis­es her own lack of direction.

She is inun­dat­ed with a seem­ing­ly end­less stream of prob­ing ques­tions about her roman­tic sta­tus, career plans and her weight (“What are you up to, besides starv­ing your­self to death?”) With ten­sions already run­ning high, she is thrown com­plete­ly off bal­ance by three unex­pect­ed guests: Max; his wife Kim (Dian­na Agron); and their infant daughter.

Though the film is a com­e­dy, it also leans into the ter­ror of this extreme­ly awk­ward state of affairs. Ariel Marx’s chill­ing score, filled with dis­cor­dant strings, allows the audi­ence to expe­ri­ence unfold­ing events through Danielle’s per­spec­tive. As the nerves begin to fray, tor­rents of cacoph­o­nous sound are unloaded to make sure that her stress lev­els are mir­rored by our own.

Shi­va Baby explores the hor­ror of the mun­dane. Danielle’s mis­placed phone becomes a tick­ing time bomb, ready to explode at any moment and expose the real­i­ty of her sit­u­a­tion. The threat of hav­ing to hold the scream­ing baby of her sug­ar dad­dy and his aggres­sive­ly per­fect ​“shik­sa princess” wife looms over her like an omi­nous presence.

The film offers up an array of impres­sive per­for­mances. Pol­ly Drap­er is excel­lent in the role of Danielle’s moth­er Deb­bie – her over­bear­ing pushi­ness is infused with a love and warmth that makes her delight­ful to watch. Sen­nott, mean­while, was with the project since the very begin­ning, work­ing with Selig­man on the for­ma­tion of her char­ac­ter, and it’s clear how invest­ed she is. The suc­cess of this col­lab­o­ra­tive approach is evi­dent in her seem­ing­ly effort­less embod­i­ment of this com­plex woman, with all her flaws and contradictions.

The film also pro­vides a refresh­ing­ly neu­tral por­tray­al of sex work. While Danielle is des­per­ate to hide the truth from her par­ents and fam­i­ly friends, telling them that she’s a babysit­ter, it’s also clear that she’s sug­ar­ing because she wants to. Chal­leng­ing the oft repeat­ed nar­ra­tive that sex work is inher­ent­ly exploita­tive in a way that oth­er jobs aren’t, and only tak­en up as a last resort.