{"id":39764,"date":"2023-05-11T22:12:52","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T02:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=39764"},"modified":"2023-05-11T22:12:52","modified_gmt":"2023-05-12T02:12:52","slug":"you-have-to-see-this-shiva-baby-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/05\/11\/you-have-to-see-this-shiva-baby-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"You Have to See This! Shiva Baby (2020)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Streaming on<\/strong> Hulu, Amazon Prime Video<\/a>, HBO Max<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unreal that Emma Seligman is a newcomer director when watching \u201cShiva Baby.\u201d She manages to build and introduce us to what is easily one of the most chaotic and absolutely uncomfortable movies I\u2019ve ever seen. \u201cShiva Baby\u201d is a master class in making its viewer absolutely uneasy and anxious as Seligman just revels in amping up the anxiety to every single bit of her narrative every minute. Seligman, despite making \u201cShiva Baby\u201d her work of absolute love, is not one who ever lets her characters off the hook. Despite focusing the entirety of \u201cShiva Baby\u201d on her central protagonist Danielle, Seligman has a great time making her squirm, panic, and just about heave in sheer horror as she twists the screws on her throughout \u201cShiva Baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When we first meet Danielle she is at her sugar daddy\u2019s house having sex with him, and in spite of his efforts to garner some sense of intimacy, she\u2019s makes a speedy exit from his apartment. On the way out she manages to bump in to her overbearing mother and father Joel and Debbie, both of whom are on their way to a Shiva. A Shiva is a Jewish gathering during a time of mourning and despite her protests Danielle is goaded in to tagging along with her parents. Danielle is completely caught off guard from the starting gate as she\u2019s forced in to spending the entire day with a slew of relatives. They\u2019re not at all very pleasant as they spend a lot of their time berating her and questioning her about her life.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The problem is that Danielle has spent a lot of her time lying to both of her parents as well as her sugar daddy, so her lies eventually begin to crack through her fa\u00e7ade. To make things even worse, Danielle\u2019s ex-girlfriend Maya appears to the shiva. Maya formed a very passionate relationship with Danielle without her parents\u2019 knowledge, and she\u2019s yet to really cope with the break up. If that\u2019s not bad enough, Danielle\u2019s sugar daddy Max appears at the Shiva, and he\u2019s not only married (Dianna Agron), but also has a small child. Much of \u201cShiva Baby\u201d is just a powder keg as Danielle reacts to so many big reveals but has to figure out a way to not make her shock so apparent. It becomes painfully obvious that she\u2019s been lying to Max, but she\u2019s even more taken aback when she learns Max has been lying to her.<\/p>\n

Dianna Agron as Max\u2019s wife Kim is yet another stroke of genius as she\u2019s a woman who slowly catches on to Max and Danielle\u2019s tension. It then becomes a matter of when and how she\u2019s going to out the pair, or if she\u2019ll ever out the pair. That becomes the driving force of Danielle\u2019s sense of terror, as she spends so much of her time trying to maintain her lies, while also never quite being sure if Kim is aware of what\u2019s occurring behind her back. There are so many moments where director Seligman zeroes in on Danielle injecting this suffocating energy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There’s almost always a crowd in every scene of the film, always obscuring Danielle, and covering every exit and doorway. Not even the bathroom is a safehaven. The close ups and slow zooms on star Rachel Sennott amplify the sense of everything closing in on her, and she can never really rely on anyone among the party to really bail her out. Sennott is superb in her ability to act with her eyes and punctuate her emotions with glares and stares. There are so many uncomfortable and awkward moments staged that it\u2019s almost like watching a very slow, very painful car wreck, and there\u2019s always a sense of uncertainty that makes \u201cShiva Baby\u201d feel less like a comedy and more like a personal horror film. Even in the very end,<\/p>\n

Seligman is not content with twisting every screw, but she also stuffs everyone in to a car, allowing for a final uncomfortable topper. It\u2019s a scene intentionally cringe worthy, but still quite funny. Director Emma Seligman has a sheer talent developing her characters, and developing this complicated world that is not about good or bad, but just complicated human situations that have absolutely no easy answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Streaming on Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max It\u2019s unreal that Emma Seligman is a newcomer director when watching \u201cShiva Baby.\u201d She manages to build and introduce us to what is easily one of the most chaotic and absolutely uncomfortable movies I\u2019ve ever seen. \u201cShiva Baby\u201d is a master class in making its viewer absolutely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1717],"tags":[64,111,219,302,1401,2123,1013],"class_list":["post-39764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yhts","tag-adaptation","tag-arthouse","tag-comedy","tag-drama","tag-lgbt","tag-lgbtq","tag-suspense"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39768,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39764\/revisions\/39768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}