Tribeca Audience Award Winner Bad Shabbos Was Written in Miami

The Jewish tradition of Shabbat dinner, also called Shabbos, is a time of rest, reflection, and feasting. Inspired by the seventh day of creation, when God finally took a break, the night centers around friends and family. It's supposed to be a relaxing evening, but Daniel Robbins' film Bad Shabbos is a delightfully dark and twisted tale about one family's Shabbat dinner gone wrong.

Two Jewish guys walk down the street on the Upper West Side. One tells the other a joke, but the punchline never comes — it's interrupted by a falling body. That's when Robbins turns back the clock two hours to show how the world's worst Shabbos came to pass.

It's a startling start to the film, but in an interview with New Times, Robbins explains the genesis of the screenplay is somewhat rooted in reality.

"The idea came from our producer Adam Mitchell and co-writer Zack Weiner," he explains. The Weiner family Shabbat dinner often involves new guests, and the matriarch enjoys playing pranks on the unsuspecting diners. "Adam heard about one of these pranks and asked Zack, 'What if one of these pranks ended up in someone dying? That would be a funny movie.'"

What results is the madcap adventure of an engaged interfaith couple, David (Jon Bass) and Meg (Meghan Leathers), whose families are meeting for the first time at his family's home. His parents are the meek Richard (David Paymer) and Ellen (Kyra Sedgwick), who has not yet warmed to her future daughter-in-law. Rounding out the dinner party are David's cynical sister Abby (Milana Vayntrub), her philandering boyfriend Benjamin (Ashley Zukerman), and their unhinged, IDF-obsessed little brother Adam (Theo Taplitz). The guests of honor, at least in intent, are Meg's parents Beth (Catherine Curtin) and the uptight John (John Bedford Lloyd). Cliff Smith, better known to the world as Method Man, rounds out the ensemble playing a doorman who is eager to get into everyone's business. By the end of the night, one of them will be dead.

Robbins imbued Bad Shabbos with the energy of a screwball comedy, citing "old Howard Hawks film[s] like His Girl Friday." The movie was required viewing for the cast, not just because the director is a fan, but "because that's what a lot of modern Orthodox homes actually sound like — at least in New York City. They talk fast and have an almost stream of loving bickering."

Robbins says part of the reason the film is resonating — it won audience awards at the Tribeca Film Festival and Palms Spring International Film Festival — is its setting. The team shot the film on the 16th floor of a real New York apartment. "Once we got up there I realized why people rarely do it," says Robbins. "Every person and item has to be transported through one elevator." It was a painstaking process resulting in the film's claustrophobic feel, which ultimately heightens the tension.
It took about 45 drafts to strike the right balance between humor and heart — something akin to "Meet the Parents and My Big Fat Greek Wedding," says the writer/director. And while the film was shot in New York City, Robbins and Weiner wrote the project in Miami, where they've both spent time since childhood.

"When [I] say, 'We wrote the film in Miami,' it probably conjures images of Zack and me writing on lounge chairs in a nice South Beach hotel," says Robbins. "But in reality, we were both staying with our grandmas [during Covid]." Being in Miami reminded the pair of another cinematic inspiration, The Birdcage. "It's also a film about in-laws meeting and follows a similar structure."

Still, Robbins does not think the film could have been set in South Florida: "In Miami, people are friendly with their doorman. But in New York City, people are family with their doormen." The doorman in the film, played by Smith, is integral to the film's plot. Robbins recalls Sedgwick proudly saying, "You know he's stealing the movie."

Still, it's the ensemble cast and genuine family dynamic that make Bad Shabbos so irresistibly watchable. The film was a small, independent production that required efficient and concise work from all involved. Rehearsal was an extravagance due to "scheduling restraints," so "at the start of each day the cast would meet up in the green room — an emptied bedroom in the shooting location — to read lines together to find the rhythm." Robbins looks back at it as a blessing. "It's good to rehearse a little to get on the same page, but [in] comedy, you also need that unpredictable static in each scene to keep people on their toes."

Bad Shabbos. Starring Kyra Sedgwick, Cliff "Method Man" Smith, Jon Bass, Milana Vayntrub, Ashley Zukerman, David Paymer, Meghan Leathers, Catherine Curtin, Theo Taplitz, John Bedford Lloyd, and Josh Mostel. Screenplay by Daniel Robbins and Zack Weiner. Directed by Daniel Robbins. 84 minutes. Not Rated. Check for showtimes at miaminewtimes.com/miami/movietimes.