Rachel Sennott’s All Too Relatable Dark Comedy With 96% on Rotten Tomatoes Arrives On Streaming Next Month

A few years before she was trying to land a girlfriend via a high school fight club with Ayo Edebiri in Bottoms, Rachel Sennott celebrated one of her breakthrough roles in a hysterically uncomfortable comedy about life, love, and — especially — death. Making her feature-length directorial debut, writer and helmer, Emma Seligman, delivered one of the best indie films of 2020 with Shiva Baby. Featuring ensemble performances from Molly Gordon (The Bear), Danny Deferrari (Oppenheimer), Dianna Agron (Glee), Jackie Hoffman (Only Murders in the Building), Sondra James (Dating and New York), Rita Gardner (P.S. I Love You), and Deborah Offner (Black Swan), the movie will feel painfully relatable for anyone who’s ever felt lost in life with the pressures of those around you crushing your entire being. Next month, Netflix audiences can take part in the awkwardness, as Shiva Baby will join the streamer’s lineup on December 7.

As the title would suggest, the dark comedy centers around a shiva, with most of the story taking part inside a small, cramped home where friends and family have gathered to mourn the loss of their loved one. Caught up in the mix is Sennott’s Danielle, a college senior who doesn’t have the handle on life that she’d like to have at this point. She attends the grieving event alongside her parents, Joel (Fred Melamed) and Debbie (Polly Draper), but soon finds she recognizes several familiar faces. Of the people she runs into, one is her ex-girlfriend Maya (Gordon), who is wildly successful and the belle of the ball— preparing to head off to law school. Fully rounding out an absolute nightmare situation, Danielle also crosses paths with her sugar daddy, Max (Deferrari), only to discover that he’s married and has a baby. Over the rest of the film, the cries from the infant, mixed with the tight space of the small home, and Danielle’s attempts at dodging uncomfortable conversations, mix together to create an absolutely unsettling coming-of-age film with a 96% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Rachel Sennott’s Ever-Growing Career

Since the success of Shiva Baby, the sky’s been the limit for Sennott, who has used the boost from the movie’s popularity to solidify her place in the biz. Those who checked out Halina Reijn’s A24 feature, Bodies Bodies Bodies, undoubtedly found themselves annoyed by Sennott’s character, an insufferable podcaster named Alice, while her work as a screenwriter, star, and producer of Bottoms not only reunited her with Shiva Baby helmer, Seligman, but also better rounded out her takeover of on-screen LGBTQ+ stories. Most recently, she joined the star-studded call sheet for Jason Reitman’s comedy-drama, Saturday Night.

Beginning on December 7, Netflix subscribers can sign in and see where Sennott’s career really took off when Shiva Baby cries its way onto the streaming platform.

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