Maya Jabbari

Managing Editor

Photo Via DassCinemag

Whenever someone asks me about my favourite movie, my mind always goes to Emma Seligman’s “Shiva Baby”. People, when discussing and explaining their favourite movies, usually talk all about the cinematography and the set design, but with this one, the film’s score always gets me and stands out more than anything. It makes the movie what the movie is, a true reality of a young woman coping with nervousness and anxiety on display. Without fail, on every rewatch, I feel what the protagonist feels. To me, what makes a movie perfect is not just the performance of the actors but rather how the music makes me connect and feel what the characters are feeling on a deeper level, which I feel is undermined daily in films. 

“Shiva Baby” revolves around a young Jewish woman named Danielle who attends a shiva (a Jewish mourning ritual) with her parents. Not feeling seen by her parents, she is struggling to balance her complicated relationships with her childhood best friend, Maya, and a current affair with an older man who just so happens to be at the shiva with his, unknown to Danielle, wife and newborn baby. As the film unfolds, tension and anxiety gradually rise as secrets are threatened to be exposed. 

As this tension and anxiety rise throughout the film, Danielle, played by Rachel Sennott, starts to spiral. This performance of spiralling is, yes, displayed through Rachel Sennott’s phenomenal acting but also through the music. It’s as if we’re actively living in Danielle’s world of anxiety, being put in her shoes and, at the same time, on the edge of our seats. Through the conflict she faces while hiding the secret of the paid hookups she’s been having with an unknown to her, married man who is friends of friends with her parents, the rhythm and unease in the film’s soundtrack by Ariel Marx, adds depth to the mix of emotions we’re experiencing through the protagonist.

Not only is this secret the main plot of the film, but so is how her family and friends, at this shiva, treat her. This is often shown in scenes with her family members during overwhelming conversations, commenting on her body, her career choice, and overall her as a person, which results in her struggling to maintain dialogue amongst her family. We can literally hear the discomfort that is felt by Danielle through her changing emotional state. Her anxiety ultimately creates tension between not only her and her family members but also between her and the audience. We are sitting there, so invested in what’s going to happen next, waiting for her to crack, hearing the music get more intense 

as the film progresses. 

The rhythm of the music in this film is specifically what makes us feel uneasy. As Danielle navigates not only the house where the shiva is taking place, but also how to deal with the people in it, the potential exposure of her secrets and their consequences rise and rise, and with that, the music adopts an irregular and intense rhythm. It’s as if it becomes rhythmically unpredictable, which I think composer Ariel Marx wanted us to experience, working as a reflection of Danielle’s heart rate and internal restlessness. It’s more intimate that way, like we’re her, we’re living what she’s living, and god it sucks. 

Upon research, Nylon Magazine had a conversation with Seligman on the film, where they note that Seligman insisted that the score was “dissonant and abrasive” without any “melodic moments”; as a result, Marx composed most of the film, using strings in order to originate the style of Klezmer music. It’s as if these strings symbolize the unravelling of Danielle’s lies and the crumbling of the walls she’s put up to defend herself, but we see through her. 

The climax of the film is marked by the rise of both narrative tension and musical intensity. As Danielle’s lies finally become exposed, the music becomes a huge orchestral display of intensity all together, and all at the same time. We finally see the true depth of her turmoil and we empathize and connect with her. This peak is her emotional breakdown, which we’ve seen build up throughout the movie’s 78-minute run time, capturing the overwhelming anxiety and vulnerability she experiences, which leads to her crying on the floor with her mother. There’s this loud crescendo of music until, suddenly, there’s a break, and she finally does crack. It’s at that very moment where her world explodes, and we’re witnessing it. She tries to find the right words while on the floor, but ultimately doesn’t. And that’s where we finally fully understand Danielle, and her mother does too.

So, “Shiva Baby’s music communicates the intense emotions the main character, Danielle, deals with as she grapples with anxiety, secrecy, and the whole idea of pulling herself together for the benefit of others. The film’s soundtrack, to me, perfectly encapsulates her internal struggles, and it does an amazing job of immersing the audience into her world, allowing us to experience her levels of unease like they’re our own. By using the power of sound to its fullest, “Shiva Baby” says A LOT about how we as humans experience emotions so deeply.