Tahara Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Tahara Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 29, 2025

In what may be one of the oddest examples of quasi-"typecasting" in recent memory, Rachel Sennott has now played a young Jewish woman with a questioning sexuality whose story unfolds at events surrounding a funeral in two separate films (each rather interestingly the feature directing debuts of their female helmers). Shiva Baby's title at least alludes to the period of mourning after a Jewish person dies, a term which even most non-Jews recognize, but the title of Tahara is probably a bit more recondite to the general public. Cleanliness may not in fact be next to Godliness (there is actually no proscription in the Bible stating their proximity, despite strong belief otherwise), but it's very important to the Semitic religions in particular, and there are a lot of rituals surrounding, for example, hand washing before or even during rituals like the Seder, but in this case the film's title actually refers to the cleansing and other preparation of a corpse as it's being prepared for burial.

Carrie Lowstein (Madeline Grey DeFreece) and Hannah Rosen (Rachel Sennott) are evident BFFs who find themselves having to, well, live through a funeral service for a classmate of theirs who has sadly committed suicide. Their public facing "grief" is undermined by snarky private discussions, where it turns out the suicide victim was not especially well liked. When the girls' synagogue offers a post service "teen talk back" event to help the kids process whatever emotions they're having, things go seriously awry for a number of reasons. The emotional equilibrium of the characters is already somewhat unbalanced to begin with, and Hannah's crush on a boy named Tristan (Daniel Taveras) as well as Carrie's new friendship with a girl named Elaina (Shlomit Azoulay) start causing friction. When Hannah asks Carrie to "practice" kissing in anticipation of some snogging with Tristan, even more unexpected developments arise.

This is an extremely distinctive debut feature, and if it doesn't quite hit all of its targets, it comes amazingly close a lot of the time. There's probably a bit too much self consciousness in stylistic flourishes like the aspect ratio suddenly widening when Hannah kisses various characters, not to mention a lot of animation and even stop motion Claymation-esque vignettes that probably weren't strictly necessary. Even so, there's an emotional honesty to the film that in its own way kind of evokes the natural approach toward coming of age stories of some of the old John Hughes movies.

Tahara Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tahara is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer (mostly) in 1.00:1. The aspect ratio was specifically chosen to mimic social media posts, and it gives the story a suitably claustrophobic feel (an emotional subtext shared by Shiva Baby, interestingly, even if that film has a more traditional aspect ratio). As mentioned above, the aspect ratio "magically" widens a couple of times when Hannah gets kissed. The imagery is typically nicely sharp and well detailed, though there are a number of intentionally low resolution moments that are supposedly actual posts or things like old video. The palette is nicely suffused, if a touch on the sickly yellow-green side in some of the ladies' lounge material.

Tahara Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tahara features Dolby TrueHD 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 options. This is a kind of "small" production on any number of levels, and that includes a sound design that isn't overly elaborate. As such, the stereo track actually suffices perfectly well for what is in essence a dialogue driven outing, but the surround track can at least intermittently open up background ambient environmental effects and some of the scoring. All spoken material is delivered cleanly and clearly. There are forced subtitles for several "telepathic" moments between the girls, but otherwise there are optional English subtitles for actual dialogue.

Tahara Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary features director Olivia Peace, writer Jess Zeidman, cinematographer Tehillah de Castro, editor Troy Lewis and sound designer Justin Enoch


• Tahara Trailer (HD; 1:47)


• Tahara Alternative Trailer (HD; 2:30)

As with many releases from this label, the main menu also has an About Film Movement option that brings up a text box with information.

The sleeve has an inner print, and an insert booklet contains an essay by Sara Clements. The original exclusive Vinegar Syndrome release evidently had a slipcover, but the review copy sent to me did not.

Tahara Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Somewhat interestingly, neither director Olivia Peace nor Sennott are actually Jewish, but unlike the comically incorrect "Hebrew" offered on the menu of The Possession that I joked about years ago in my review, someone actually managed to get "Tahara" transliterated correctly on the menu for this release. This is a very distinctive effort with a rather dark, complex sense of humor. Technical merits are solid and Tahara comes Recommended.