Two best friends navigate love and grief amidst tragic circumstances in TAHARA, a brilliant, idiosyncratic coming-of-age story. Courtesy of Film Movement.Such a strange, deeply peculiar movie TAHARA is. I know that in a lot of these blog posts, I tend to reminisce about COVID and how it interfered with PJFM. Do forgive me, but it was a big deal! And it definitely affected the movie I’m going to discuss. It was early 2020 when PJFM’s Screening Committee first reviewed TAHARA, a quirky, independent, LGBTQ high school comedy/drama. We were deeply perplexed yet amazed by this film and its originality. We booked it for our spring festival that year, and then… yeah. You know what happened.
Not to worry though! We streamed TAHARA in our 40th festival that November. Viewership was a little low, I admit, probably because this isn’t like any typical film that PJFM would show. TAHARA exists in a genre of its own. This is so much more than a high school, coming-of-age dramedy with an LGBTQ theme. Other festivals agreed, TAHARA streamed at numerous other film festivals in 2020 and 2021. I was more than delighted when Film Movement, the movie’s distributor, gave it a limited release sometime later. It’s also no surprise that one of the film’s leads, Rachel Sennott, is now a megastar, catapulting to stardom in hit films like Shiva Baby (2020) and Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022). A comedian at heart, Sennott’s sardonic sense of humor is hilarious, and her performance makes TAHARA one of the more realistic high school films to come around.
“High school movie” is always an interesting genre to discuss because so often, these films are too unrealistic. We all know, for example, that the actors in Grease, one of the most popular high school movies in the history of cinema, were in their late 20s and early 30s. We recognize that in so many films, the actors playing students just don’t really “feel” like everyday high schoolers, from their age to the dialogue they speak. In TAHARA¸ director Olivia Peace and writer Jess Zeidman make a work of art that doesn’t even feel like it stars actors. Watching their film, we are like students walking by, eavesdropping on the outlandish, sometimes offensive things these kids have to say. Teo Bugbee of The New York Times sums TAHARA up perfectly:
“The Hebrew-school comedy TAHARA mimics the zinging pleasure of overhearing teenagers chatter as they walk home from school,” Teo says. “It’s gossipy, delicious and a tad cruel.”
“A tad cruel” indeed. TAHARA isn’t a mean-spirited movie though. It’s an authentic look at being a teenager, and whether we hate to admit it or not, we weren’t always the smartest back in the day. I remember listening to a podcast the other day where the host talked about when we were in high school, our frontal lobe wasn’t fully developed yet. In other words, kids say things that they don’t know are incredibly insulting sometimes.
Hannah (Sennott), for example, is pretty insulting from the get-go. It’s a sad day for her and her best friend, Carrie (Madeline Grey DeFreece, outstanding), at their Hebrew school. One of their classmates, Samantha, has committed suicide, and the school has brought all students to the building for the funeral and a special “talkback” to speak about ways to cope with grief and death in Judaism. The mood is somber, of course, but Hannah seems less interested in remembering her dead classmate and more so in flirting with her crush, Tristan (Daniel Taveras). (During the service, she kisses her siddur and imagines Tristan walking towards her.)
Carrie and Hannah have an interesting dynamic. While Hannah is certainly more inappropriate in situations, Carrie seems shyer and slightly more sensitive. There’s a moment after the services when the students are eating lunch. Carrie goes off to the corner and cries for a moment, unsure of where these emotions are coming from. She even tells Hannah that she isn’t sure why she’s so upset. Carrie even admits to her teacher, later on, that she doesn’t feel as sad as she wants to because she didn’t know Samantha too well.
Therefore, is it a bad thing to not grieve? That’s one of the interesting themes that TAHARA explores. Peace does this in a surreal, almost comical manner. When Carrie and Hannah go to the talkback, there are other students wailing in agony over their classmate. We hear it in the background, but it’s like no one even notices it, not even the teacher. Meanwhile, the two friends sit emotionlessly at their desks, undisturbed by the pain emanating from the room. It’s a weird sequence because we too wonder how we should be reacting. Should we laugh? Should we cry as well? However, we don’t even know anything about Samantha. Grief works in bizarre ways for many people, but especially younger folks. As we see in TAHARA, grief is the last concern for Carrie and Hannah.
So what is the ultimate obstacle these two friends must reconcile? Hidden love. It happens completely at random. Hannah, whining about the boredom of her day while popping a pimple in the girls bathroom, wonders how she knows if she’ll be a good-enough kisser or not for Tristan. She asks Carrie to kiss her. Her friend chuckles and gives her a quick peck. Hannah, however, is deadly serious and demands her friend “goes for it.” The two embrace, and for the rest of the day, Carrie feels… different. Was this more than a kiss for her? Are hidden feelings beginning to peek out of Carrie’s mind?
This is the general plot of TAHARA, a high school dramedy about a friendship irrevocably changed by one simple act. In representing both Jews of Color and LGBTQ Jews, Peace’s film is a testament to onscreen Jewish diversity. Stylistically speaking, it’s also just a gorgeous work of art. Filmed in a square ratio, like an Instagram post, Peace encloses us into this gloomy, unexpected day of mourning and discovery. The “Instagram post” ratio is also not a coincidence. This is a movie about the Gen Z population, kids who are glued to their phones, hoping to impress one another with photos, gossip, and more. Peace even cleverly inserts Instagram-like bubbles when new characters are presented onscreen. In the end, when you think about it, TAHARA really is like one long Instagram video.
The dialogue of Zeidman’s script uncannily resembles day-to-day talk in high school, let alone a Jewish one. DeFreece and Sennott say their lines with such a natural resemblance to an everyday kid. There are no over-the-top monologues or unrealistic words they use to vent their frustration. As Hannah, Sennott has this weird ability to not make her character a total villain. She’s not the most sympathetic character, of course, but she’s also just a kid. While Carrie tries to figure out her personal feelings, Hannah just wants to flaunt her sexuality because she thinks it’s the right thing to do for her age. She flirts in a way that is so cringeworthy it’s like she just watched a bad porno and is trying to emulate it. Hannah has no boundaries, and in a strange way, we’re almost forgiving of her.
TAHARA’s blending of endless themes and genres – high school, queerness, Judaism, death, etc. – makes for a captivating experience. At 78 minutes, it bewilders us with its idiosyncrasies and honest depiction of high school. Anyone has been a Carrie or a Hannah at some point in their teen years.
TAHARA is now available to stream on Starz.