Emma Seligman’s feature debut, Shiva Baby, sees her return to familiar ground. Three years ago, she made a short of the same name, with the same central character, Danielle, (played by Rachel Sennott) facing the same problems. But now the story has a multiplicity of characters, Danielle has even more on her plate and it all takes place over the course of one fraught day at the culmination of a family shiva.
She’s a reluctant guest, attending under pressure from her parents, and the gathering turns into a personal nightmare when she discovers that her former lover Maya (Molly Gordon) is there. Things go from bad to worse when she comes face to face with her sugar daddy, Max (Danny Deferrari) – and his wife and baby.
On the receiving end of what seems like non-stop questions about her career prospects and personal life, Danielle’s predicament echoes that of Benjamin Braddock in the classic The Graduate and, in the interview below, Seligman discusses how the similarities have been there since she started working on her script as a student. She also talks about how, having originally rejected the idea of having a soundtrack, she opted for the discordant strings of Arial Marx, which underline Danielle’s anxiety and the film’s frantic energy.
Although she wrote the script, Seligman also pays tribute to a friend who created one of its most memorably hilarious lines. If you’ve not seen the film yet, it involves Gwyneth Paltrow ….
Shiva Baby is in cinemas for one day only on 9 June and on MUBI from 11 June.
