SHIVA BABY

A Film Deep Dive

SHIVA BABY (2020)

Emma Seligman takes her seven-and-a-half-minute senior film of the same name and expands it into her first feature, Shiva Baby, drawing the audience into a series of overlapping worlds she has either passed through or lived within herself. The result is a tightly constructed comedy that feels less like casual viewing and more like an experience to be endured—one that is precise, claustrophobic, and quietly relentless.

“So you just study and don’t eat and go out with your beautiful friends, is that it? Is that your life?” (Seligman, 2020)

Shiva Baby understands that film, even comedy, can hold multiple meanings at once. It is observant, sharp, and deeply uncomfortable. Humor exists here, but rarely as relief. Instead, it heightens the tension already present in the room.

The film opens with eerie strings layered over the sound of an over-harped moan, the image slightly out of focus. We meet two characters before we are fully allowed to see them. Girl meets boy—perhaps. Or perhaps not. The power dynamic is immediately felt, even if it remains unspoken. Dani exits this encounter and moves toward another performance of herself entirely, walking to meet her parents as she prepares to attend a shiva.

The tonal shift is immediate. Her hair is no longer straightened but tied back naturally. The music cuts sharply as her father waves from across the street. Her mother repeatedly asks how she looks. Dani hesitates when asked about her plans after college, unsure how to summarize a future she herself does not yet understand. A whispered warning—“No funny business with Maya”—lands quietly but heavily. As they approach the house, Dani asks the most grounding question of all: “Wait mom, who died?”

Once inside, the film never leaves. The house fills quickly, the rooms offering no space to retreat. Even in close-ups, we feel people pressing in from all sides. Seligman traps both Dani and the audience inside a social ritual that allows no privacy, no silence, and no real escape. The decision to remain in one location forces the discomfort to accumulate rather than dissipate.

Comedy here functions as tension rather than release. Each interaction compounds the last: questions about Dani’s future, her body, her relationships, her faith, her choices. Nothing is asked with malice, yet everything feels invasive. This is where Shiva Baby reveals its precision—showing how social expectations are often enforced not through cruelty, but through concern.

The humor is subtle and observant. Small remarks, glances, and interruptions carry as much weight as full conversations. The kitchen scene between Dani and Max is quietly devastating. Their shared history lingers just beneath the surface, permeating every exchange. Max’s presence inside the house collapses the boundary between Dani’s private life and the version of herself presented to her family. Repeatedly, the film places her in situations where she must perform different selves for different audiences—none of which feel fully honest.

Seligman’s direction mirrors Dani’s internal state. The camera stays close, often uncomfortably so. Wide shots are rare, denying the viewer room to breathe. Sound design plays an equally important role: overlapping dialogue, clinking dishes, and murmurs blur together into a constant low-level noise that never dissipates. Anxiety becomes structural rather than thematic.

This is where Shiva Baby aligns less with traditional comedy and more with psychological tension. Like Black Swan, anxiety is externalized. It is not merely felt—it is constructed through pacing, sound, and framing. Where Black Swan dramatizes obsession through spectacle, Shiva Baby locates its terror in the mundane: a look from a parent, a question from an acquaintance, a smile held a moment too long.

Dani’s anxiety is not exaggerated for effect; it is familiar. It reflects the uncertainty of early adulthood, the pressure that follows college, and the quiet fear of disappointing both oneself and others. The film understands that humor and anxiety often coexist—that laughter does not cancel discomfort, but lives alongside it.

Sexual empowerment in Shiva Baby is intentionally complicated. Dani’s relationship with Max exists in a space of negotiation rather than control. Moments of validation and appreciation surface, only to be undercut by imbalance—financial, emotional, and social. The film neither condemns nor celebrates this dynamic. It presents it plainly, allowing the discomfort to speak for itself.

The generational divide between the women in the house is equally subtle and persistent. Older women offer advice framed as care. Younger women absorb it, deflect it, or quietly resent it. These interactions reveal how expectations are passed down, normalized, and rarely questioned—particularly within tight-knit cultural and familial spaces.

By the time Shiva Baby reaches its conclusion, nothing has truly resolved—and that is precisely the point. The film offers no transformation or closure. Dani does not leave more confident or certain. She exits the house much as she entered it: overwhelmed, observant, and searching.

This refusal to provide a neat ending feels honest. Life does not often change in a single afternoon, even when emotions peak. Shiva Baby captures a moment rather than a lesson—a snapshot of early adulthood where identity feels fluid, expectation feels heavy, and self-definition remains unfinished.

Emma Seligman’s debut feature succeeds because it understands that anxiety is not always loud or dramatic. Sometimes it is quiet, persistent, and social. It exists in living rooms, kitchens, and dining tables. It appears in questions asked too often and answers that never feel complete.

Shiva Baby does not ask us to judge its characters. It asks us to recognize them. In doing so, it offers a comedy that is as uncomfortable as it is familiar—and a reminder that even the most ordinary gatherings can carry extraordinary emotional weight.