Already hailed as a classic, Emma Seligman’s razor-sharp new
comedy joins a long tradition of movies delving into the culture and rituals of Judaism
Earlier this week, the best comedy of the year played in cinemas for a one-night-only engagement. Missed it? Don’t worry: it’s gone straight to streaming on Mubi instead. Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby is a blunt, salty-sharp blast of inspired farce, arriving in the
UK on a tide of cultish enthusiasm from across the Atlantic. There, it’s been hailed as an immediate classic of Jewish cinema, a subgenre as rich and flavourful in its sensibility as Christian faith-based films are, well, not.
A shiva is a Jewish wake, and sure enough, Seligman’s film seeks out any number of inappropriate comic avenues to pursue at a single funereal gathering, over the course of just 77 wince-filled minutes. University student Danielle (comedian Rachel Sennott, in a wicked breakthrough) is the only child of a middle-class
New York Jewish couple, reluctantly dragged to the shiva for a family friend she barely remembers. Between bagels and murmured condolences, she gets her elders’ thoughts on everything from her weight (too thin) to her college major (too trivial) to her bisexuality (verboten, particularly with her sometime girlfriend also at the event).