Bad Shabbos (2024): Even God Must Be Laughing!

by Len Weiler

Comically screwed-up family get-togethers have been around forever. Films like You Can’t Take It With You (1938), Father of the Bride (1950), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), La Cage Aux Folles (1978), Meet the Parents (2000), Death At a Funeral (2007) and How About Adolf [orig. Der Vorname] (2018) tend to make the viewer cringe and laugh in more-or-less equal measure. Or, for an extreme recent example (on TV), there’s the Barzatto family Christmas fiasco which Carmy vividly recalls in the “Fishes” episode of The Bear (season 2). 

Still, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a funnier family gathering scenario than the one in the new movie Bad Shabbos. The movie is a complete, unabashed hoot!

As the title suggests, Bad Shabbos. involves a contemporary Jewish family gathering for a special Friday evening Shabbat dinner at an Upper West Side Manhattan home. The extended family (all adults, more or less) starts with Ellen [Kyra Sedgwick] and Richard [David Paymer] - eccentric in a clichéd yet still amusing New York Jewish way. Joining them are their three grown children: the eldest son, David (Jon Bass), along with his shiksa fiancée Meg [Meghan Leathers]; daughter Abby [Milana Vayntraub] and her scumbag boyfriend Ben [Ashley Zuckerman], whom all - including Abby herself – wish would just disappear; and the youngest, 17-year-old disappointment Adam, an awkward loner still living with his parents, while dreaming of joining the IDF.

Meg has been trying very hard to ingratiate herself into David’s family, and particularly with her resistant future mother-in-law, going so far as to take Judaism lessons in order to convert. Shabbat evenings with David’s family are always fraught, but this one is especially so. Not just for Meg; everyone, especially Ellen, is nervous.  Why is this night different from all the other nights? Because tonight, Meg’s very white-bread, straight-laced Christian parents, John [John Bedford Lloyd] and Beth [Catherine Curtin] – who’ve flown in from Wisconsin just for the occasion – are coming to meet David’s family for the very first time. Everything must be perfect. 

You know the adage about the best laid plans? This is pretty much a screwball comedy, but even by the wacky parameters of that genre, the term “awry” doesn’t really cover what happens next. Shortly before John and Beth’s anticipated arrival, there’s an accidental (and messy) homicide on the premises, thanks to Adam. For most folks in this situation, the next steps would be clear – call the police, call off the dinner, etc.   But, of course, cogent thinking is not the name of the game in a comedy. Rather, in order to protect Adam, it’s decided to just cover things up and proceed with the evening as if nothing has happened. But in addition to cleaning up the mess (which, thankfully, we are not shown), they have to surreptitiously dispose of the body – not so easy in a NY apartment building. Violating the common understanding of surreptitious, they quickly enlist the help of the building’s savvy and genial doorman, Jordan [Method Man (of Wu Tang Clan fame) in a terrific performance] – to no avail.  

You can imagine how all this is gonna go – a rash of increasingly foolish decisions with ever more hilarious complications, like a rib-tickling boulder rolling down hill.  By the time John and Beth do arrive, the mayhem is so far underway, there’s no way that it’s going to go well. The trainwreck is every bit as crazy-funny as what went before.

To the filmmakers’ credit, the side-splitting hilarity of Bad Shabbos never lets up all the way through to the cute, unexpected epilogue. What’s fascinating to me is that said filmmakers:  writer-director Daniel Robbins, co-writer Zack Weiner and producer Adam Mitchell – all young guys with relatively little prior movie-making experience – have been able to put together such a riotous gem of a comedy.  The script, the pacing, the facial takes and double takes, and the acting in general - all are exquisite. 

This is a picture to watch in a theater if you get the chance, or at least with a group of other people. When I saw it – with a Tribeca audience that included scores of people associated in one way or another with the film – the laughter started about five or ten minutes in and continued pretty much nonstop all the way through. But this was no fluke. Bad Shabbos won the 2024 Audience Award as best fiction film of the festival.

As this is written, to the best of my knowledge, Bad Shabbos has not yet been picked up by a major distribution company. But it will be.  Currently, it is being featured at the upcoming San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (see below). If you are in the SF Bay Area, and like to laugh, go see it. You don’t need to be Jewish. Otherwise keep an eye out for it at other upcoming such festivals. I’ll try to update this post if/when Bad Shabbos goes into general distribution. 

1 hour 24 minutes

Grade: A

Screening at the SF Jewish Film Festival on July 20, 2024 in SF and on August 2 in Oakland.  Tickets available here.  Not yet in general distribution.