Review: 'Shiva Baby' is a painfully funny comedy, set during a Jewish funeral, that builds its tension like a thriller.

Writer-director Emma Seligman makes a strong feature debut with “Shiva Baby,” a deliciously and painfully tense comedy following one young woman through the torture of the post-funeral reception.

Danielle, played by Rachel Sennott, has survived into her 20s by compartmentalizing her life. She lives with her parents, Debbie (Polly Draper) and Joel (Fred Melamed), while trying to finish college with her vaguely defined major. While her parents think she’s earning extra money babysitting, she’s really getting her cash by acting as occasional sex partner to a “sugar daddy,” Max (Danny Deferrari).

The day depicted in “Shiva Baby” starts with Danielle and Max having sex in Soho apartment. She leaves there to meet her parents for the shiva of a family friend — though she’s not quite clear on who the deceased is. What Danielle does know is that all of her mom’s friends are asking about her college career or her romantic prospects, both tender subjects that Danielle would rather avoid.

Debbie also warns Danielle “no funny business” at the shiva, especially when Danielle notices Maya (Molly Gordon) anter the room. Seligman doesn’t tell us much at first about Maya, but we suspect she and Danielle are either former high-school rivals or ex-girlfriends, or maybe a combination of the two.

Just as Danielle is beginning to grapple with how to explain her college life and whether to avoid Maya, someone else joins the party: Max, with his blonde overachieving wife, Kim (Dianna Agron, formerly of “Glee”), and their 18-month-old daughter in tow. It’s enough to make Danielle, a professed vegan, stress-eat a bagel with lox and a schemer.

Seligman, in expanding a 2018 short of the same name (and also starring Sennott), revels in the tension produced when Danielle watches the elements of her messy life come together after she’s spent so long keeping them separated. Seligman ratchets up the tension with Maria Rusches claustrophobic camera work, a tense score by Ariel Marx, and a thorough understanding of the gossipy undercurrents of a traditional shiva.

The supporting players — particularly Draper (“thirtysomething”), Melamed (“WandaVision”) and especially the scene-stealing Gordon (“Booksmart,” “The Broken Hearts Gallery”) — are terrific. But “Shiva Baby” belongs to Sennott, a burgeoning talent known for her comic Twitter videos and now playing Kyra Sedgwick’s daughter in the sitcom “Call Your Mother.” Sennott nails every facet of Danielle’s splintering life, and finds the frantic humanity through all of it.

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‘Shiva Baby’

★★★1/2

Available starting Friday, April 2, through the Salt Lake Film Society’s virtual cinema, SLFS@Home. Not rated, but probably R for sexual content and language. Running time: 77 minutes.