The Great Directors Week: My Favorite Archers Film

I've been spacing these posts a little too far apart, and letting them pile up.  So, I'm devoting a full week to new installments of my "Great Directors" series.  Enjoy.  

The filmography of British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, who dubbed themselves "The Archers," is full of films that I always recall as being fantasy films, even though they aren't.  There's such a heightened, striking look to their work, especially in the post-war period, when budgets grew, and filmmakers were able to put some real spectacle and opulence onscreen again.  Theater, opera, and ballet were integral parts of some of their films, but that sensibility carried over to many of the others.

Nowhere is this more apparent than with "Black Narcissus," about a group of nuns who have come to the Himalayas to convert and civilize the local populace.  The missionary narrative was a popular one in the 1940s and 1950s, full of idealized notions of race relations and religious salvation.  "Black Narcissus" is the total subversion, where we watch the new environment and culture throw the pious women into psychic turmoil, including the gradual undoing of one nun, the unstable Sister Ruth. 

There is such a richness apparent in every frame of "Black Narcissus."  Astonishingly, nearly everything was shot in-studio, making extensive use of models and  matte paintings to create the stunning vistas and dizzying chasms.  In this way, the Archers were able to control their lighting and use of color to a remarkable degree.  And it's clear why they did it, because in this film the environment is everything.  The nuns, in their stark white habits, are faced with a world full of sensual color and texture.  Around their convent are steep cliffs and rugged terrain, representing the constant presence of danger.  Whirlwinds regularly find their way inside, making the nuns' clothing flutter and swirl in disarray.  There are some excellent performances here, especially from Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron as Sister Clodagh and Sister Ruth, but so much of the effectiveness of "Black Narcissus" comes from seeing their psychological struggle mirrored and amplified by their surroundings.   

Powell would describe the film as one of his most erotic, full of people struggling against newly awakened desires.  Far more was suggested than actually shown, of course, as stringent content restrictions prevented all but the most oblique suggestions of sinful behavior.  Suggestions, however, were more than enough.  Sister Clodagh, the leader of the convent, may be positioned as the lead character, but the iconic figure is Sister Ruth.  The isolation of living in the Himalayas reawakens the destructive passions that drove her to become a nun in the first place, along with a roiling jealousy that soon turns to madness.    The changes in her are signalled by costume and makeup changes, but also by how she's lit and shot.  The dramatic close-ups and extreme close-ups of her eyes and lips are more provocative than anything Sister Ruth's actually does.   

We can't overlook the film's Orientalism, including the deeply uncomfortable brownface performance of Jean Simmons as Kanchi, a troubled native girl.  The film leans heavily on the depiction of Nepali and Indian peoples as mysterious and unknowable.  They're often treated as extensions of the setting, especially a holy man who the nuns are unable to remove from their lands.  However, the native inhabitants of the Himalayas are in harmony with the land in a way that the Westerners are not, and it's the nuns who have the uncomfortable status of outsiders.  Some observers have posited the film could have anti-colonialist themes, or parallels with the waning days of British Imperialism.  

The Archers' films were not especially popular or well-reviewed by contemporary critics, but "Black Narcissus" was one of the exceptions.  The controversial subject matter, gorgeous visuals, and exotic locales made it something of a sensation with filmgoing audiences.  The Catholic National Legion of Decency tried to ban it in the US, resulting in unfortunate cuts to the film, but nonetheless it won two Oscars - one for art direction, and one for cinematography.  In recent years "Black Narcissus" has become the most famous and beloved of the Archers' films, having aged far better than most of the cinema of its era.    

What I've Seen - Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger 

49th Parallel (1941)

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

A Canterbury Tale (1944)

I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Black Narcissus (1947)

The Red Shoes (1948)

The Small Back Room (1949)

The Elusive Pimpernel (1950)

Gone to Earth (1950)

The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)

---

"The Mitchells vs. The Machines" vs. Miss Media Junkie

While I like Sony's new animated film, "The Mitchells vs. The Machines," I've never been more aware that I've been watching a movie that is not made for me.  It's an original property with many wonderful artists involved, and I want to give it all the support that I can - Michael Rianda and Jeff Rowe, best known for "Gravity Falls," wrote and directed the film, with Kurt Albrecht, Phil Lord and Chris Miller producing, Mark Mothersbaugh contributing the score, and other key members of the "Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse" in the mix - but there's a lot of "The Mitchells" that I had some real trouble with.

The bones of the story are solid enough.  Katie Mitchell (Abbi Jacobson), is an oddball, wannabe filmmaker who is about to go off to California to attend film school.  Her Luddite father Rick (Danny McBride) has had a rocky relationship with her for a while, and wants to patch up their father-daughter bond while he can.  So, he decides the whole family, including mom, Linda (Maya Rudolph), younger brother Aaron (Rianda), and their pug dog Monchi, will ferry Katie to California with a cross-country road trip.  Katie, naturally, is not happy with this turn of events.  And the trip gets even more fraught when a robot uprising, lead by a scorned virtual assistant named PAL (Olivia Colman) breaks out.  The film also features Eric Andre as a conceited tech guru, and Fred Armisen and Beck Bennett as a pair of defective robots.

This is a fun premise, anchored by some strong characters, appealing animation, and legitimately good jokes and gags.  I haven't seen an animated film where so much of the humor worked so well for me in a long time.  However, "The Mitchells vs. The Machines" is absolutely exhausting to watch.  The pacing is frantic and relentless.  Like "The LEGO Movie," there's always a plethora of things happening onscreen, and occasionally the animators draw 2D doodles on top of the 3D images to add more.  The movie embraces the visual language of internet memes, Instagram filters, and the new generation of online creatives.  And while that's an admirable impulse, it also makes the visuals chaotic and overwhelming at times.  None of the techniques are new - the occasional cutaways to live action clips were giving me flashbacks to "Muppet Babies" - but the lightning fast speed of it left me a little dazed.

The ideas here are great, and you can see the efforts of a lot of good talent.  I appreciate the effort that went into making Katie and Rick's relationship troubles feel real, and every step of their process toward an eventual reconciliation.  The problems aren't one sided, and it takes a lot of work from everybody in the family to get the pair to properly communicate.  And thankfully, the movie slows down for the big, emotional moments when it needs to.  It bothers me a bit that there's so much emphasis on the Mitchells being a bunch of weirdos, because of course they really aren't.  They're a different variation on every animated sitcom family we've seen recently, from the Croods to the Belchers to the "Hotel Transylvania" crew - outwardly very imperfect, but able to come together and thrive in the face of adversity.            

    

Speaking of that adversity, the film's robot uprising is certainly a good time, providing many avenues for the filmmakers to poke fun at modern man's relationship with technology, and especially the foibles of the Silicon Valley set.  I love the deeply angry PAL, who is so fed up with humanity's thoughtlessness, she's decided to take over the planet.  I like that "The Mitchells" take place in a universe a lot closer to our own than most other animated movies, and instead of trying to reimagine versions of the internet or social media that fit a more stylized animated world, our heroes interact with technology that we're already familiar with.  A plot point hinges on Rick being able to figure out how to navigate Youtube, and Linda's a little too influenced by Instagram.

The original title of "The Mitchells" was "Connected," and the original descriptions painted it as a more basic man v. technology struggle.  This is much better than I was expecting, more nuanced, more creative, and more ambitious.  However, I don't know if it's my attention span or if I'm just getting old, but I got just plain worn out by a viewing of "The Mitchells vs. The Machines."  It's an excellent movie, but one I have trouble enjoying. 

---

My Top Ten Films of 1955

This is part of a series of top ten lists from the years before I started this blog.  Entries are listed below in no particular order.  Enjoy.

The Rose Tattoo - Anna Magnani is one of the great Italian actresses, and "The Rose Tattoo" is designed to spotlight her from its very inception.  Tennessee Williams wrote the original play for her, but it wasn't until the screen version was being readied that Magnani felt her English was strong enough for the role.  And it's difficult to think of anyone else playing Serafina Delle Rose, the paranoid, controlling, beaten-down immigrant mother who joyfully discovers there's still hope for her.

All That Heaven Allows - Douglas Sirk melodramas are deceptively simple at first glance, but there's a subtle art to the great ones, and "All That Heaven Allows" is one of the best.  A middle aged widow defies social convention to love a younger man of the wrong class, creating a stirring indictment of the social structures and prejudices that keep them apart.  The performances are excellent, but what really sells the movie is how seriously and how tenderly the film treats the romance.

Les Diaboliques - Henri-Georges Clouzot has been called the French Hitchcock, and this film is the reason why.  It's a wonderfully macabre tale of a sordid love triangle and plots of murder, culminating in one of the greatest scare scenes of all cinema.  Rendered in beautifully stark black and white cinematography, and featuring excellent performances by Simone Signoret and Vera Clouzot as a fascinating pair of would-be murderesses, "Les Diaboliques" is still capable of leaving a chill.      

Lady and the Tramp - Disney's animated animal tales always got less of the spotlight, though they deliver their fair share of movie magic.  In "Lady and the Tramp," starring a pair of canines, puppy love over a spaghetti and meatball dinner was never more adorable.  Contemporary reviewers were unfriendly, taking particular issue with the sentimentality of the story, but audiences loved it.  And the film's gentle charms and low key adventures would go on to win over generations of dog-lovers.   

Marty - Is there a romantic comedy more loveable than "Marty"?  It's the terribly sweet story of a homely butcher who has resigned himself to a life of comfortable bachelorhood living with his mother, only to fall in love when he least expects it.  Written by Paddy Chayefsky, and directed by Delbert Mann in his debut, this is a blue collar love story about humble, not particularly beautiful people in love, and it remains one of the most touching, empathetic love stories ever put on film.  

Night and Fog - One of the most important chronicles of the Holocaust was this Alain Resnais directed documentary short film, made to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the liberation of France and the concentration camps at the end of WWII.  Combining horrifying archival footage with new scenes shot at the deserted Auschwitz camp, "Night and Fog" succeeds in putting the genocide in a sobering historical and moral context, while delivering a stern warning to the future.     

The Night of the Hunter - It's one of the great tragedies of cinema that Charles Laughton only directed one film, because he made one of the most singularly striking and beautiful features of the era.  The Southern Gothic thrills, combined with German Expressionist lighting compositions, and the most terrifying performance Robert Mitchum ever gave, result in an unforgettable piece of film noir.  It's one of those features that still manages to surprise me every time I see it. 

Ordet - A strange, moving variation on the Passion play, examining the dynamics of the Borgen family and their relationships with faith.  Like all of Dreyer's films, there's a staidness and solemnity to the filmmaking, but there's also a wonderful oddity to this story.  Most of this is due to the presence of Johannes, the brother who thinks that he's Jesus, and becomes a conduit for miracles.  Dreyer's cinema is one of awe and mystery, where life is as much about the unseen as the seen.  

Pather Panchali - The first Satyajit Ray film is a very rough-hewn production, but its story of a poor family enduring through tragedy is universal and transcendent.  Ray's use of the neorealist style with Indian subject matter was novel, capturing a stirring child's eye view of the world.  It's slow paced and oddly paced at times, but an immensely rewarding watch.  The poignancy and emotional realism of the film would carry through to the rest of the Apu trilogy, of much of Ray's other work.  

Richard III - Finally, this is my favorite Laurence Olivier film, and my favorite version of Shakespeare's "Richard III."  Olivier makes for such a wonderful villain, and he wasn't afraid of making himself appear monstrous and twisted.  And the gorgeous Technicolor production gives him plenty of lovely scenery to chew.  Olivier is also one of the few who could get away with recutting the play for his own ends, accelerating the action and making his Richard even more dastardly.  

---

An Excuse to Write About "Evangelion"

It's the twenty-fifth anniversary of "Neon Genesis Evangelion," the giant robot anime featuring a group of teenaged pilots in gargantuan mecha suits, who are trying to stave off the apocalypse.  "Evangelion" is considered one of the most important titles of the mecha genre, which helped to redefine the aesthetics of '90s anime and provided a boost to the waning industry.  It was one of the big titles, along with "Akira," "Ghost in the Shell," and "Cowboy Bebop," that helped to popularize anime among adult audiences overseas.  Since "Evangelion" was one of the first anime I watched in the late 90s, it took a while before I really appreciated its impact and importance.  To put it simply, there was anime before "Evangelion," and anime after "Evangelion."   

So, what's so special about this series?  Why does it have such a rabid fanbase, so many controversies around it, and such a notorious reputation?  Most of this boils down to "Evangelion" being the brainchild of director Hideaki Anno, who is brilliant but famously unstable.  Anno made no secret that he used "Evangelion" to help process some of the fallout of the depression he suffered in the early '90s.  As such, there is an intense psychological realism to many of the characters in "Evangelion" that was unheard of in anime at  that time.  The main character is a boy named Shinji Ikari, who is deeply introverted, insecure, and suffers abandonment issues.  He doesn't want to be a mecha pilot, in stark contrast to the strident kid heroes usually found in the genre, and has to be emotionally manipulated into cooperating.  For years, there were jokes in anime fandom about Shinji being an insufferably whiny and pathetic loser, but the truth is that we all identified with him - maybe a little too closely in some cases.  The story of "Evangelion" is really the story of Shinji struggling with his mental health.  Most of the other major characters around him are also deeply troubled - the almost robotically stoic Rei, aggressively competitive Asuka, and self-destructive Misato.          

As a result, "Evangelion" is a deconstruction of the typical giant robot story, featuring terribly fallible heroes, who are supported by a sinister military organization that is exploiting them for its own gain.  The Evangelions piloted by Shinji and the other kids are the result of monstrous experiments orchestrated by a shadowy cabal, and as frightening as any of the enemies that they fight against.  The more the show uncovers about the origins of the Evangelions, and what the adults responsible for them have been doing, the more horrific the series becomes.  However, at the start, the show looks like a typical giant robot show, with weekly battles, cool suit-up sequences, and lots of picturesque destruction.  And thanks to the efforts of Studio GAINAX, the action looks and sounds fantastic, full of beautifully visceral animation, with moments of unexpected, gutting violence.  However, with Shinji in the role of the hero, all this trauma lingers and compounds on his fragile psyche, until it becomes unbearable.  

While I love the more showy, spectacle-based parts of the show, when I think of "Evangelion" I tend to remember how fiercely interior it is.  I remember the images of Shinji listening to his Walkman and staring at his ceiling, wandering around the countryside in silence, or waiting at train crossings.  I appreciate the show's willingness to simply spend time with him doing absolutely nothing except existing.  The mundanity is strangely as compelling as the scenes of giant robot madness, because it helps to ground the characters so much more firmly in reality.  Anno captures so many subtler, human moments and interactions that are so well-observed, and does so much with just the way he frames and juxtaposes his characters against each other.  The EVA pilots and their universe feel so genuine, that when they're under threat, it's so much more gripping.  

Alas, "Evangelion" had a famously ambiguous and frustrating ending - more than one, actually - all kinds of distribution problems, and is currently in the middle of a long-delayed series of reboot films.  I still can't make much sense of the series mythology, and I've seen the show all the way through three times.  I swear, "Evangelion's" continued popularity is due in part to how difficult and incoherent it becomes in its final stretch - which rewards the obsessives who like picking it apart, but is just confounding to everyone else.  The finale famously earned Anno death threats, and he went on to repeat this  whole cycle with his next show, "His and Her Circumstances."

Still, when "Evangelion" is good, it's in a class by itself.  I highly recommend the series to anyone interested in anime, because it's worth watching through at least once, just to marvel at the places the series is willing to go.  The closest American equivalent I can think of is David Lynch's "Twin Peaks," which took a similar approach to deconstructing American soaps.  "Evangelion," however, is shorter and has giant robot battles.  Speaking of which, I think it's fitting that "Evangelion" is credited with kicking off its own sub-genre of anime, aptly titled the "Real Robot" genre.

 

---

Four Seasons Into "Parks and Recreation"

Moderate spoilers ahead for the first four seasons.

The third and fourth seasons of "Parks and Recreation" see Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) getting romantic, and Leslie running for City Council.  Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) takes on the job of Pawnee's city manager, and Tom Haverford takes a strange detour into the private sector with Jean-Ralphio (Ben Schwartz).  The show has hit its stride, and while not every episode is great, and the fourth season loses laughs as it enters "West Wing" territory, it maintains a level of quality that is very impressive.  

The biggest course correction that the show has made is that its outlook is now firmly positive, and all of its major characters are shown to be fundamentally good people who are slowly improving themselves.  Even though they have their faults, some bigger than others, they can be counted on to help each other and do the right thing when it matters.  It's fun watching people grow and change and learn to value each other.  Leslie Knope is firmly at the center of all of this, figuring out how to apply her insane work ethic in ways that allow her to actually accomplish big things.  She emerges as a true leader of our motley bunch.  At the same time, Amy Poehler keeps her so fallible and so funny.  Leslie is amazing, but she's also still a petty, grudge-holding, overzealous steamroller with a waffle addiction.

A lot of the show is concerned with everyone's romantic relationships.  Because I am totally basic, Leslie and Ben are my favorite couple, but I would be inconsolable if Andy and April ever broke up.  What worries me is that romance - or really failure in romance - is becoming a defining characteristic for characters like Ann, Tom, and Chris.  Ann and Tom get paired up at the end of the fourth season, which feels very wrong, and I suspect the writers only went in that direction because they weren't sure what else to do with either of them.  Ann and Tom are the members of the gang who seem the most neglected at this point, still fairly shallow and unexplored despite having a lot of potential.  Tom's 720 Entertainment business venture was a one-note joke that got run into the ground, while revealing almost nothing new about him as a character.  I know more about Donna and Jerry's lives, just due to running jokes.

Conversely, I like how Ben and Chris have been developed.  It took me a while to stop seeing Rob Lowe as Sam Seaborn, and enjoy the weirdo that is Chris Traeger.  Lowe has this desperate energy that makes Chris more and more poignant as his perfect facade starts showing cracks.  Meanwhile, Ben is a nerd who is a nerd in a realistic way.  He's not constantly spouting pop culture references or accounting jargon, but it shows up at the right times.  I like that he's a super-earnest idealist like Leslie, who just got pummeled down by failure and tedium over the years.  He's maybe too much of a perfect boyfriend - endlessly empathetic and supportive of all of Leslie's ambitions - but on the other hand Ben does have his own insecurities to tackle.  And I'm a sucker for healthy, functional onscreen relationships.        

"Parks & Rec" has proved that it's not scared of changing the status quo in fundamental ways, which has kept the show interesting, and kept me from focusing on its weaker points.  The third season had the very strong Harvest Festival arc, and the secret relationship arc, which were the show at its best.  Though it had some lulls, I also like the election storyline, where we get to explore the ins and outs of Pawnee more, and get guest stars like Bobby Newport (Chris Pratt) and his campaign manager Jennifer Barkley (Kathryn Hahn).  Other highlights include the introduction of the rivalry with the affluent Eagleton, the tiny horse Li'l Sebastian, and a local doomsday cult.  I'm not remotely surprised that writer Mike Scully is a "Simpsons" vet.    

The one character I haven't mentioned yet is Ron Swanson.  Nick Offerman is still fantastic, and I like the gradual softening of Ron's edges.  However, the two attempts to match the series high that was "Ron and Tammy," from the second season, have both fallen a little flat.  I get such a kick out of Tammy Two (Megan Mullaly), and Tammy One (Patricia Clarkson) has great potential, but somehow Ron's messy relationships with his ex-wives are funnier offscreen than they are onscreen.  

I'm halfway through the show, and the urge to binge just keeps getting worse.  I'll be back with a post on the remaining seasons sooner rather than later.    

---

"For All Mankind," Year Two

The most fascinating episode of this season is the first, where we skip ahead to the 1980s and get a great montage of how world history  played out differently in this universe.  Margo is now running the Johnson Space Center, and Ellen (Jodi Balfour) is being positioned to take on leadership of NASA.  Ed is head of the Astronaut Office, and Karen runs the Outpost, which has been renovated into a nicer bar.  Their adopted teenage daughter, Kelly (Cynthy Wu) is considering college options.  Gordo and Tracy have split, while Molly and Dani are struggling to stay in the game.  Aleida (Coral Peña) is now an adult, but her road to NASA is as rocky as ever.  

Other prominent characters include Gordo and Tracy's son Danny (Casey W. Johnson), Ellen's girlfriend Pam (Meghan Leathers), Air Force General Nelson Bradford (John Marshall Jones), and astronaut trainees Gary Piscotty (Michael Benz) and Sally Ride (Ellen Wroe).  And if you think that's an awful lot of characters to keep straight, that's a big part of why this season is so much rougher than the first one.  The show has jumped over a decade ahead, to when the space program and Jamestown Base have significantly expanded, but the show spends way too much time on Earth following the fairly mundane lives of its characters.  And where the excitement of watching space travel progress through the years helped to patch some of the weak characterization in the first season, the second makes a lot of those weaknesses plain, because it covers a much smaller span of time.

Where the first season of "For All Mankind" was more heavily focused on being historical and science-fiction, this year the balance has shifted toward melodrama, with several episodes feeling like "Mad Men" lite.  And frankly, it's not good enough to be "Mad Men." I don't like most of the major characters this year.  Maybe it's because we have actors of all the wrong ages playing people going through various midlife crises that seem awfully trite and contrived.  I don't feel inclined to root for Ed or Gordo in their latest bids to reclaim glory, or to fill much sympathy for Karen and Tracy as they keep making self-destructive choices.  It's good to see more prominent roles for Molly and Ellen, who were some of the more interesting supporting players last season, but they don't actually seem to get more screen time or emphasis.  None of the new faces really stand out or get much opportunity to distinguish themselves, though the show has set up several of them to become key players in the future.  

The one character I still really enjoy is Margo, because she's actively engaged in her job as a NASA administrator throughout, and tackling the bigger challenges of keeping the space program going.  It also helps that she looks era and age appropriate throughout, and gets smart, snappy dialogue that wouldn't be out of place on "The West Wing." She's the one who has to juggle the concerns of the White House, the military, and her own people as the Cold War continues to rage, and the moon is quickly becoming its newest front.  Things really heat up with the Soviets this year, and I wish the narrative had been more concerned with the escalating arms race instead of everyone's love lives.  I miss the little snippets of real news footage and cutaways to historical figures that were used so well in the first season.  They still appear in the second, but much more sparingly.   

The show's production values remain excellent, especially all the work in space and on the moon.  Jamestown Base and all the various ships and other vehicles look fantastic.  There are two moonwalk sequences that are among the tensest things I've seen in any media this season.  The finale is a big, effects and action heavy piece of spectacle that is absolutely ludicrous in the way it plays out, but so impressively executed that I can't really complain.  While I'd like "For All Mankind" to be a more staid, pseudo-documentary style program, that's not what the show is.  It may be hard science-fiction, but it wants to be entertaining above all else.  So it builds up larger-than-life heroes, indulges in maudlin pathos, and everybody always has the worst timing.

And it's good enough at doing those things that I'll keep watching.  I'll probably still be frustrated with the show, but I'll keep watching.     

---

Meet "Shiva Baby"

Back in 2015, Trey Edward Shults made a little-seen independent film called "Krisha," about an elderly woman whose mental state disintegrates during a Thanksgiving gathering.  "Shiva Baby," directed by Emma Seligman, has more or less the same plot, except that we have a young Jewish woman attending a shiva with her parents.  Also, it's a black comedy.

Danielle (Rachel Sennott) is a college senior who has a sugar daddy relationship with a man named Max (Danny Deferrari).  She attends the shiva of a distant relative with her parents, Debbie (Polly Draper) and Joel (Fred Melamed), and finds Max also attending.  Max finds out, via the circulating gossip, that Danielle has lied about financial status and career plans.  Danielle finds out that Max is married to a woman named Kim (Dianna Agron), who is also at the shiva with their baby in tow.  Danielle's childhood friend Maya (Molly Gordon), who she's had some bad history with, is also in attendance to help escalate tensions.

"Shiva Baby" is the ultimate nightmare family event, where all the comfortable fictions that Danielle relies on get shredded by her family over the course of one afternoon.  At first, it's just the usual little white lies about her plans for the future - that she's studying, and has interviews lined up.  Then, the thornier, more personal business starts coming out.  And all of this is done through the relentless chit-chat of nosy friends and extended family.  Seligman's portrayal of the tight-knit Jewish community is very loving, even as she shows how unbearable it is.  There seems to be an endless stream of elderly, beautifully dressed women who want to grope, feed, and interrogate Danielle about her love life and career prospects.  Her parents think nothing of trotting out the most embarrassing episodes from her past and setting her up for future humiliations - all with the greatest affection.  There's a clear generational divide, and the younger characters have their own unspoken rules.  I love the little rituals and absurd bits of behavior that Seligman captures - everyone ignoring Max's screaming baby, all the passive-aggressive micro-aggressions, and several attempts to be helpful going horribly awry.  

The cast is great.  This is the first thing I've seen Rachel Sennott in, and she's fully in command of the movie, both dramatically and comedically.  Danielle's great failing is that she hasn't been honest with anybody, and her attempts to try and control the damaging information reveal all her insecurities and foibles.  Her best moment is a bit of physical comedy with the buffet that every woman will understand all too well.  Draper and Melamed are a lot of fun as her parents.  I appreciate that while they're insufferable, they're also quite lovable.  It might take a minute or two for them to register when Danielle really is in distress, but then they immediately want to help.  Deferrari and Gordon as Max and Maya, who have very good reasons for being upset with Danielle, keep up the glowering and the hostilities nicely.  I wish the film had gone into more detail on Danielle and Maya's relationship, which is glossed over very quickly, since it's an unusual wrinkle in the dynamics that nobody seems comfortable with.

The filmmaking is a lot of fun, gradually ratcheting up the anxiety through uncomfortable camera angles and elements of sound design.  When Danielle feels cornered, the gossip gets harder and harder on the ears, even though the content is just inanities.  More obvious cinematic tricks are kept to a minimum, fortunately.  The film is more effective for how wonderfully plausible it is, and how organically the comedy is integrated.  A major theme is that everyone trying to be considerate and trying to put on their best face for others results in everyone being miserable.  This results in two of the film's best scenes - one involving an impromptu job offer, and another involving Danielle's parents' van.        

Out of everything I've seen in 2021 so far, "Shiva Baby" has been the most pleasant surprise.  I'm looking forward to seeing what Seligman and Sennott do next.

---