There is hot soup to complement the cold body in Bad Shabbos, Daniel Robbins’ comedy of mortification that strives to be both a mitzvah and a Shiva. What the movie delivers is an unholy mixture —a comedy delivered with all the solemnity of a death prayer, a death drama acted by klutzes and schlemiels—lots of overcooked grief to go along with the burnt brisket.
Kyra Sedgwick plays the matriarch of all this chaos. She is controlling, passive aggressive with a smile that is her main weapon. She exists in a blur of good- bad intentions. David Paymer’s Richard is her foil, a man who hasn’t stopped sighing and kvetching since the Jews left Egypt. Their son David (John Bass) is marrying Meg (Meghan Leathers), a Catholic convert whose presence is both a love gesture and a provocation. The in-laws from Wisconsin come with cheese-colored expectations. The siblings, taking after Richard, kvetch in not so adoring abundance. The boyfriend Benjamin (Ashley Zuckerman). probably tired of all the nonsense- dies. The family that can’t live together in life must now deal living with death.
Benjamin’s death is initially played for shock, but eventually becomes a farce. The comedy of life doesn’t mesh with the death rumblings.. The tonal disruption made me think that is the whole point of “Bad Shabbos. Why else would Robbins and co-writer Zack Weiner lean into the chaos? They never intended for the two comic tones to land. Life is messy. Death is even messier. Humans must deal with both. Life is the frantic comedy that must yield to grief, the dance of death. And we must all live with the discrepancy, whether we like it or not. Bad Shabbos is trying to be a more real comedy. Approached that way, the film manages to pull it off just barely. I give it props for trying.
Yet there is happiness in the mess. Milana Vayntrub’s Abby is a typhoon of breakup energy. Theo Taplitz’s Adam is a neurodivergent card with Klonopin and Zionist dreams. And Method Man, who is Jordan the doorman turned faux-Ethiopian Jew, is the movie’s holy fool. His entrance is an act of ritual interrupting. It flashes a moment of pure punk comedy into the film. The pulse of Bad Shabbos is him sitting at the table.
The title “Bad Shabbos” is, of course, a joke. But it is also a diagnosis. The day for rest and reflection becomes a battleground. Everyone is fighting over identity, grief, and even the value of their performance. They all are going through perfunctory rituals— overdone frantic pleas. The family is preoccupied with hiding the body, the stain of death, anything to get through and observe a proper day. It is a bad Shabbos moment —but also a true one.
The film is high on performance but low on genuine emotion—the one set plot cramps what needs to breathe above its grief clichés. However, the Jewish comedy of mortification has always been a mixed-blessing genre, more goodbyes than welcomes. The genre lives in the upside-down of comedy. And viewers are not accustomed to watching films where both the characters and the audience are required to stand on their heads to grasp the whole meaning. Watching this seemingly disjointed malfunction is an acquired taste. Laughter, as a form of mourning and an extension of communal grief, is challenging to learn, but it is a necessary part of life.
Bad Shabbos seldom rises above, and never moves far away from what it records. Still, it Kibitzes. Tries. It is worth looking at, even for the effort and the failure, because failing has value as a way of speaking back.
Grade: B+. Streaming on Netflix.
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