Brandon at Random Reviews

“Shiva Baby”

*spoilers*

You’ll have to forgive me, I sometimes struggle understanding the “point” or deeper meaning of some movies. Especially when I feel like there isn’t one. And it irks me when that happens.

I watched this flick because I was tired of watching these classic and/or critically acclaimed films that haven’t exactly been as good as people like to act like they are in my humble, amateur opinion. I browsed around Letterboxd and saw that someone had rated “Shiva Baby” like 4.5 stars and I was like “alright fuck it, it’s only an hour and seventeen minutes of wasted time if it sucks. Plus it was on HBO Max so it was practically free if you don’t count the whole paying monthly to have HBO Max thing.

This movie is about a woman named Danielle played by Rachel Sennott who is just about to be graduating from college and doesn’t exactly have a clear focus either in her degree or in her desires professionally post-graduation. She has been babysitting and getting supported financially by her parents. The movie is set almost entirely at a shiva, which I guess is like what Jewish folks have instead of a funeral wake, where the closest family members apparently observe 7 days of mourning. Anyway, back to what I was talking about.

Danielle is bisexual and has to deal old and new romantic relationships in the film while the people around her are asking her what she’s doing with her life and she tries to deliver made up answers to sound like she’s doing better than she is. She is also recently lost quite a bit of weight apparently, so people are walking up to her and grabbing her waist and telling her how tiny she is and asking if she’s eating enough, etc. (By the way, don’t do this shit, brief comments or compliments are nice but don’t like accuse someone of having an eating disorder in your dumb fascination with weight loss)

The music in the movie fits it, if the point of the movie is to make you uneasy and uncomfortable. It’s not really clear if the viewers are supposed to like anyone in this film (my instinct is no) and Danielle makes several bad decisions and I guess it doesn’t really help that everyone around her at this shiva is terrible.

Rachel Sennott does some pretty solid acting work here, considering I’ve never seen her in anything before. I’ve seen some of her standup and she has a little unorthodox delivery style so I didn’t know what to expect when I saw she was in this movie. The performances of the other actors are pretty good as well and they hit the right notes with their characters. But aside from that I just was not super impressed by the story here. There was no one in this story I was rooting for and to see what plays out with the main character Danielle’s old and new flames was not at all satisfying for me. Like I could give a shit who she ends up with. Maybe if the movie didn’t run 1h17m, they could’ve fleshed out a little more and had something more satisfying happen with her career and leave her seemingly toxic ways behind. But maybe my sensibilities are just not there and I’m an emotionless asshole.

For the performances and execution of what I guess was their desired story and tone I give it

⭐️⭐️