Bad Shabbos
Although she's been taking classes to convert to her fiancé David's (Jon Bass, "Baywatch") Jewish faith, Meg (Meghan Leathers, "Don't Look Up") is sagging beneath the weight of her future mother-in-law Ellen's (Kyra Sedgwick) passive-aggressive hostility. Now, with Meg's Catholic parents John (John Bedford Lloyd, "The Bourne Supremacy") and Beth (Catherine Curtin, "Saturday Night") driving from Wisconsin to New York to meet
her new family for dinner on the Sabbath, its black sheep, David's young brother Adam (Theo Taplitz, "Showing Up"), has already guaranteed it will be a "Bad Shabbos."
Laura's Review: B-
Cowriter (with his "Citizen Weiner" collaborator Zack Weiner)/director Daniel Robbins mixes the cliches of "Meet the Parents" with an inconvenient corpse plot-driving mechanism, a movie substantially enlivened by Kyra Sedgwick's hilariously overbearing Jewish mother and David Paymer's improvised Jewish ritual stalling ploys. Method Man's inconvenient ingratiation as the family's doorman who jumps in to help by impersonating the deceased adds another jolt of life to this hit and miss comedy.
Robbins kicks his movie off with perhaps its best gag, a flashforward of Saul (Josh Mostel) beginning to tell a joke to Irv (Stephen Singer) as they walk on the Upper West Side sidewalk below Ellen and Richard's (David Paymer) apartment, Saul's punch line commandeered by events from above. We then roll back to the beginning, where the fact that Barney Greengrass's owner Gary and Ellen and Richard's doorman Jordan (Method Man) know about the Shabbos dinner is supposed to be funny. Meg is clearly nervous, both about fitting in with old traditions and her parents' acceptance of her conversion, something David recognizes by warning his family that John and Beth are not used to 'families who argue,' and, in fact, 'are polite.' But Ellen excepted, the only real source of contention is between tightly wound Adam, whose inability to succeed elsewhere has focused his efforts on joining the IDF, and Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman, TV's 'Manhattan'), middle sibling Abby's (Milana Vayntrub, "Werewolves Within") boyfriend who makes a sport out of getting under Adam's skin. After both are warned and Adam's taken his Klonopin, he joins the family where Benjamin immediately labels him 'the golden intern.'
Meanwhile, Meg is trying hard vying for Ellen's approval in the kitchen, a hopeless task, her every word and deed turned against her. As she commiserates with Dave and Abby out on the balcony, Dave tells Abby how his mother responded to news of his engagement - 'I just began to mourn my father, now I have to mourn my son.' They're camaraderie is interrupted by a flustered Adam, who demands Dave's help and one by one, Meg being the last, the family will learn that Adam slipped Benjamin his laxatives as a prank which turned deadly. With Meg's parents' late arrival, an earlier demerit from Ellen turning into a plus, approaching and their options shrinking, Dave tells Jordan they need his help, adding another ticking clock as the man's shift ends at 8 p.m. when Cano (Alok Tewari, "Bound") will begin to oversee the entrance.
Sedgwick, who recently played a Jewish mom in the short-lived sitcom 'Call Your Mother,' is this film's secret weapon as she pastes a veneer of welcoming good intentions over her obvious disapprovals. Thankfully, she's given a turning point, Ellen's emotional response to Meg's lovely D'var Torah written all over her face. Paymer's Richard revels in his Jewishness, a bonding element with Jordan who deems himself part of this family. Needing to create cover for his son during dinner, Richard invents the 'man's chant,' none other than the 'biddy biddy bum' chorus from 'If I Were a Rich Man.' Method Man's assumption of Benjamin's identity comes as a shock to all and an amusing surprise for us. John Bedford Lloyd provides the counterpart to Sedgwick's Ellen, his condescension and distaste for the unfamiliar barely masked. Vayntrub's warmth atones for Ellen, but Taplitz is too over the top while Bass and Leathers are saddled as the straight men.
The production harkens back to Woody Allen comedies, the action largely kept within one sprawling apartment, Barney Greengrass and city streets firmly orienting us in the Upper West Side. "Bad Shabbos" is at its best when its humor is character driven, but the dead body driving the plot is often a dead weight on the comedy.
Robin's Review: C-
Convert Meg (Meghan Leathers) and her Jewish fiancé are hosting a dinner for both families to introduce the parents. Things go badly wrong when a boyfriend, suffering from colitis, is given a potent laxative, which kills him. But, what about the body and dinner? Find out in “Bad Shabbos.”
Buried in the drawing room farce that is at the bottom of “Bad Shabbos” is another case of needing to suspend disbelief to even watch. What starts out as a prank, at least in the mind of scrawny Adam (Theo Tapitz), a wannabe IDF commando who gives Ben (Ashley Zuckerman) the aforementioned laxative, ends in his unfortunate death. Is it an accident, or is it murder? You will not find out watching “Bad Shabbos.”
This is where the drawing room farce takes place. Ben’s death is revealed gradually, with the players, one at a time or in pairs, rushing to the death-scene bathroom and back to the dinner table until everyone knows. Here is what bothers me, though, nobody calls 911 for help. They declare Ben dead and move on to the next “comedic” situation – dealing with Meg’s mom and dad and a dead body.
Director Daniel Robbins, with co-writer Zach Weiner, draw on the, mostly, likable actors to make the so-called story more acceptable. Kyra Sedgwick as the modern-day Jewish mother gets her kitsch right and David Paymer gives a suitable perf as family patriarch and mensch. Milana Vayntrub, as daughter Abby, gets some of the best sarcastic moments. The rest, except for the character Adam who is reprehensible, are fine in filling their roles. So the problem is the writing and the necessity to suspend disbelief so the family death cover-up is plausible. It all falls flat.
I think what bothered me most about the family behavior is the amorality of it all. No one seems overly concerned about a dead body hogging the bathroom, that it could have been intentional as Adam, the perp, expresses no remorse. And, apparently, no one else in the family is too bothered by Ben’s expiring.
A decent cast, a bad story, a very unlikable character and not a lot to like made “Bad Shabbos” a slog. And, I think it puts the members of the faith in a bad and callous light.
Menemsha Films released "Bad Shabbos" in NY on 5/23/25, expanding in subsequent weeks. Click here for theaters and play dates.
