Spoiler Warning: Shiva Baby
2020 was a tough year for movies. Though there was no shortage of great films, the pandemic left most major releases with two unpleasant options: bite the bullet and go straight to the streamers, or delay the release until theatrical exhibition becomes a reality again. If there was one major silver lining to this disruption in exhibition, it was the relative leveling of the playing field. When films are released in theaters (especially by major theatrical chains), the films that have the greatest mass appeal are given emphasis over movies that are more niche. This changes (to an extent) when the release is on a streamer. Suddenly, audiences could log onto HBO Max, see a new mass-appeal blockbuster like Birds of Prey (2020), scroll a few films over, and see Shiva Baby (2020), a low-budget panic attack tailor-made for queer millennials, Jews, art-house lovers, and cringe-comedy devotees.
Regardless of the pandemic, audiences would have noticed Shiva Baby writer/director Emma Seligman -- at least at some point. Her film is so richly textured, impeccably crafted, and expertly performed that critics were destined to eat it up like fresh kugel and blintzes. The movie is also crowd-pleasing, effortlessly engaging despite (no, because of) its alignment with two frequently stigmatized cultural lenses: Shiva Baby is very queer and very Jewish. Despite the jaw-dropping list of innovators and ground-breakers in the film industry who are LGBTQ+ and/or Jewish, those subjects have been long neglected by the silver screen (though this has changed slightly in recent years). When either demographic is depicted in a non-derogatory fashion, it is almost exclusively through noble suffering. Shiva Baby upsets this trend, dealing with its queer and Jewish themes casually.
The film was destined for acclaim -- but probably as a sleeper hit. However, after rave reviews at festivals and an HBO Max release, while quarantined audience members clamored for content, Shiva Baby connected with a wide audience who could relate to its protagonist, Danielle. She is locked up in one place with nerve-shattering relatives while her entire sense of self collapses around her.
Thanks to the film's success, Seligman has two projects in development and doesn't seem to be slowing down. Like Danielle's overbearing extended family, we'll be asking persistently: so, Emma, what's next for you?
Emma Seligman and Shiva Baby
Emma Seligman is a Jewish-Canadian filmmaker currently based in Los Angeles. She is openly bisexual and gender-queer, using she/they pronouns. According to an interview with Harper's Bazaar, Seligman's love of cinema goes back to her early childhood. Initially, she entertained a notion commonly dreamed of by young starry-eyed children -- she would be a film critic. A devotee of Ebert and Roeper's At the Movies, Seligman fell in love with all things movies and gravitated towards the serious stuff: Elia Kazan, Turner Movie Classics, and TIFF (even participating in that festival's youth program). When she went to NYU to study filmmaking, "[she] knew [she] wanted to do something Jewish first, because that's just the easiest thing for [her] to write."
For her thesis film, Seligman made Shiva Baby (2018), a short about a young sex worker who goes to a Shiva (a seven-day mourning period following a funeral, practiced by religiously observant Jews), where she runs into her sugar daddy, his wife, and the couple's infant child. She is forced to reconcile two images of herself -- sexually liberated young woman and a nice Jewish girl.
Seligman knew she wanted to turn the short into a feature film but was met with resistance by many friends and colleagues who were put off by her ambition. The notable exception was Rachel Sennott, star of the short and eventual feature, who pushed Seligman to get the script made. At only twenty-four, Seligman made one of the best films of the year; and though she cites inexperience and insecurity in many interviews, her cast has sung her praises. "Emma is more mature and talented than directors I've worked with who are over fifty," Danny Deferrari told IndieWire about his experience playing the Sugar Daddy to Rachel Sennott's Danielle. "She's clear and extremely collaborative. She understands how the human condition metabolizes pain, trauma, and stress into something cathartic and humorous."
In the same IndieWire profile on Seligman and Shiva Baby, Seligman said that sugaring -- the practice of a younger person exchanging personal favors for financial/material favors from an older, wealthier person -- was very prominent at NYU. Though she never became a Sugar Baby, she saw the practice as indicative of broader issues relating to femme empowerment and self-esteem that she could relate to. "[...] I was realizing that the only power I had in my life that formed my self-worth was sexual validation or my 'sexual power.' ... That became the base of what the movie was about: a young woman realizing she had no power and letting the little girl that her parents see her as and the sexually independent version of herself she had presented to her sugar daddy clash."
The film was not only rich in theme and performance. Seligman displayed a brilliant understanding of the film form, playing with genre (despite the coming-of-age ramifications of the story, the movie has been classified as horror, thanks in large part to its claustrophobic camera work and screeching score by Ariel Marx), sound, and visual composition to create an experience that has been compared to great films from the Graduate (1967) to Uncut Gems (2019). This is no small feat for a first-time director. With such an accomplished debut, what will Seligman do next?
Bottoms (Feature Film).jpg)
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Emma Seligman and Rachel Sennott have teamed up again to co-write Bottoms, a coming-of-age comedy about "two unpopular queer girls who start a fight club to have sex before their high school graduation." Seligman will direct, with Elizabeth Banks and Max Handelman's Brownstone Productions producing. The film will be distributed by the recently relaunched Orion Pictures, which parent company MGM has utilized to focus on feature films from and about underrepresented voices.
Little else is known about the film, though its budget will presumably be larger than the independently financed Shiva Baby. Seligman managed to turn the benchmark disadvantage of so many independent films -- the single location -- into a major stylistic asset; it will be interesting to see how she approaches time, space, and structure in her sophomore film.
Though referred to as a comedy, there's no way to know what shape the film will take -- the set-up sounds reminiscent of Booksmart (2019) or Lady Bird (2017) until the fight club element is introduced. Seligman proved in her debut that she is unafraid to move her narratives into unbearably tense, unsafe territory despite the film's outer sheen of coming-of-age comedy. There is a definite chance that the protagonists' innocent ploy to get laid will take a dark, potentially violent left turn.
We can also expect more queer representation and themes. The film's title seems to be a reference both to the social status of its outcast leads and the sexual preference, which is frequently associated with passivity/submission. Seligman and Sennott's rogue bottom troublemakers seem to directly challenge that idea.
Sugar (TV Series)
After upgrading from short to feature, Emma Seligman's Shiva Baby takes its next leap as a television series. Seligman and Adam McKay are producing Sugar for HBO, a half-hour comedy series following a young Jewish woman in New York who works as a sugar baby. The series will be co-executive-produced by Lizzie Shapiro, Kieran Altman, and Katie Schiller, all of whom produced the Shiva Baby feature film. In addition to creating, Seligman will be writing and directing the pilot episode. Rachel Sennott does not seem to be attached, and it is not known how closely the series will follow the previous incarnations of the story. Given the long-form nature of television, it is unlikely that Sugar will focus on such a time-specific moment in its protagonist's life. Shivas (as well as other Jewish practices) could be featured but have not been mentioned in the shows' press release.
We can definitely expect further dives into Jewish identity, queer identity, sex work, and the unexpected intersections between the three. Given Shiva Baby's short runtime, the sheer volume of ideas about culture and the individual is jaw-dropping. One of the film's most fascinating moments comes from a conversation between Danielle's mother, Debbie, and her friend, who are sizing up Kim, the wife and mother of Danielle's Sugar Daddy (Debbie, of course, is not aware of this). The blonde-haired "girl boss" is the subject of jealousy and scorn throughout the film and is referred to as a shiksa by Debbie (a shiksa being a gentile woman who tempts Jewish men). Kim is actually Jewish, just not in any way Debbie is willing to recognize. When her friend mentions that Kim's father was Jewish, Debbie dismisses it (according to Jewish religious law, Jewish identity is determined by matrilineal descent). In doing so, she defines Jewishness as religious rather than ethnic. But when her friend tells her that Kim officially converted, Debbie dismisses this as well, despite the religious legitimacy of conversion. It's a small moment, but one that is dense in cultural context, commentary, and understanding. The extended room for storytelling in the television format will allow Seligman to explore nuances like these in even greater depth.
This will be Seligman's first venture into television, though co-producer McKay is experienced in the field, having executive produced the hit series Succession and written for Saturday Night Live. Hopefully, Seligman's contribution will extend beyond merely creating the show and directing the pilot. Still, if that is the extent of her involvement, she will be setting up room for a fascinating (and very funny) world to play out in her absence, which gives overdue representation to queer Jews.
Olam Ha-Ba (or: What's Next, Emma?)
A virtual wunderkind, where Seligman's career will take her next is anyone's guess. She has shown a remarkable command of the screen craft and a deep understanding of human nature (without which her films would be mere formal exercises). Her next two projects seem to follow the sensibility she developed in her short films and feature, but they are mistaken if audiences expect her to stick neatly to the feminist dramedy niche.
"Once I got to the end [of making Shiva Baby] and people were like, 'Well, it's kind of a horror movie,' I was so flattered, because I feel like film and TV by female directors is always [...] dramedy," Seligman said in her interview with Harper's Bazaar. "I think about Nicole Holofcener or Tamara Jenkins or Nora Ephron or Gillian Robespierre or Desiree Akhavan, and they all live in this sort of realist dramedy space. I'm really proud of Shiva, but at the same time, I never thought about doing any other genres, because I didn't see female directors doing Westerns or whatever." Now that her star is rising, Seligman could very well venture into territory beyond the dramedy. "[...] I would really like to be able to do stuff like Karyn Kusama or Ana Lily Amirpour [two female directors known for their uncompromising films that play with and deconstruct different genres]."
Seligman's tight camera work and understanding of behavior give her an advantage in any genre, but it would be especially exciting to see her venture into a straight-up horror film. As Danielle plunges deeper into her mental breakdown, the visuals of Shiva Baby become more distorted, expressionist, and suffocating -- Seligman doesn't let the tension stop for a minute and keeps the audience engaged with mounting complications. Clearly, Seligman can do horror (and comedy, drama, and erotic thriller) -- but what makes the unexpected genre flourishes in Shiva Baby so satisfying is their use to reflect the interior experience of the character. The horror elements are not just for fun or to contrast the comedy. The tonal balancing act represents the lurching feeling of being a young adult with no idea of what the future will hold. Your experience is at once a farce, a sob-fest, and a horror show. If Seligman moves into the horror genre proper (or any particular genre), let's hope that it is simply to broaden the canvas on which she paints, cutting psychological strokes.
Whatever follows her next film and series, Seligman is dedicated to giving queer film geeks the stories they need. "I want to make every movie I do going forward with a queer female lead [...] I just feel like there's so many queer people that are film buffs -- like, there's tons of queer women who love the Fast and the Furious. Wouldn't it be so cool to just have a bunch of, like, gay women and bisexual women driving fast cars? You know what I'm saying?" If anyone can make it happen, it's Emma Seligman.