Directed By Eva Victor

Starring – Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Louis Cancelmi

The Plot – Follows Agnes (Victor), a graduate student, as she navigates life after experiencing a traumatic event, specifically a sexual assault. The film explores the aftermath of this event, her struggle to heal, and the impact it has on her relationships, particularly her friendship with Lydie (Ackie). It also delves into the power dynamics within academia and the cutthroat nature of the writing program.

Rated R for sexual content and adult language

Sorry, Baby | Official Trailer HD | A24

POSITIVES

Films pertaining to sexual assault typically come with an alienating heaviness that makes them difficult mental obstacles for victims to relive and endure, however there’s a tasteful tenderness and delicate measurement to Victor’s first time direction that refuses to revel in the sensitivities of touchily uncomfortable imagery, instead focusing on the after effects of trauma that unfortunately still ties so many women together. As the writer, director and star of the film, Victor surmises naturalistic authenticity not only to the depths of the conversations between so many compellingly pocketed dynamics between her characters, but also emphasis in those quiet moments away from the fray of life that inscribes significant recollection in the clarity of attempting to pick up the pieces from something that she wasn’t responsible for, with Agnes’ cryptic actions post-trauma percolating the strangely surreal and bewildering realities of her attempting to put the pieces together of her life. Victor’s brand of filmmaking yearns for extensive patience in the depths of the movie’s pacing, not only allowing more time and impact to sink in from a scene or sequence’s particular importance, but also insight into the lack of resistance with such a frail state of overcoming shock that makes her feel like an entirely different person previously to and after her life-altering attack. Most surprising to the interpretation, Victor taps into an ample amount of dark humor that effectively maintains the appealing accessibilities of her intricate writing, working as a therapeutic side to devastating material that legitimately does attain a healthy consistency of laughs to the awkwardness and audacities of her various set-ups, with my personal favorite of these immersive plunges coming with the irresponsible and seemingly careless actions that her school board and a medical professional take with her concerns towards reporting matters. While we the audience inevitably know what’s coming, as a result of reading through the plot, it doesn’t make its untimely arrival any less devastating in the way it’s artistically captured by Victor and cinematographer, Mia Cioffi Henry, who make the gutsy but responsible choice to focus outside of a household while the evidence of this event seems apparent in the set-up, and with some clever editing techniques in the day-to-night transition of the sequence, conveys a passage of time to the audience that only further articulates Agnes’ isolation factor and lack of transparency with horrific things that happen even in beautifully scenic neighborhoods. Agnes’ dreaded disposition would feel damning to her character if not for the balancing power of her friendship with Lydie that drove some of my personally favorite moments of the film, featuring an impeccably lived-in brand of chemistry between the actresses that makes them fun and intoxicating to be a fly on the wall during their incredibly personal and detailed conversations. While it’s easy enough to articulate a connection between characters in a film with enough time and evidential support between them, I attained believability as swiftly as the opening sequence between the two, featuring an earnestness and honesty between them that effortlessly conveys open-ended approachability to be themselves around each other, regardless of how much time has passed since they last interacted, but also the radiant charisma of each actress that includes precise comedic timing in the material that makes it all the easier to get lost in the depth of their conversations. Being a heralded actress already in films like “Mickey 17” and “Blink Twice”, Ackie not only sinks seamlessly into the subtleties of her character, allowing the familiarities of the actress to disappear towards seeing the character first, but also brings an alleviating stoicism to Agnes’ despair that never allows her friend to fall between the cracks of an inexplainable event that threatens to deconstruct her, and while Victor herself is forced to do more of the emotional heavy lifting, Ackie’s sensitivity is perhaps most defining to the movie’s integrity, allowing her on-screen friend and the movie’s tone to maintain an uplifting perseverance despite the outlined societal odds that are illustrated against her, cementing what I think is easily the British actress’ best work to date. As for Victor it’s quite remarkable to think that she’s jaded with so much responsibility in the development of this film, as she evokes such a soulfully stinging sentiment to Agnes’ vulnerability that enacts such a stirring conscience to the design of the character. Part of the obvious attainability is in this being an autobiographical story of sorts for Eva’s own sexual abuse that she faced in real life, but the authenticity would be nothing without those appreciative out of focus moments on the character where her responsive acting never stops, regardless of the conversation not exactly pertaining to her, and considering Victor puts herself through the very same trauma that inspired such a story, her resiliency knows no ends, and I for one hope she has more slice of life stories within her, as she has an unflinching honesty to her storytelling that truly transcends the cinematic enveloping, allowing us to feel like we’ve stumbled across characters and life situations that we shouldn’t be experiencing. Last but certainly not least, I wanted to talk more about the aforementioned editing practices, as I truly found this a perfect 98-minute cut of a movie, without any unnecessary excess indulgence that adds nothing to Agnes’ transformation. While the arcs with Lydie certainly receive the most screentime, in order to build the inseparable foundation between them, there are moments with complete strangers and bickering classmates that outline a bigger picture of internal value to the lessons she learns, in order to live again, and it’s one of those rare instances where I would’ve been fine if these conversations were even stretched to abnormal lengths, simply in my inability to want to let them go, particularly John Carroll Lynch’s singular scene in which he and Agnes share a sandwich, if for no other reason than to show her that there are still good men in the world with the best intentions.

NEGATIVES

While there’s very little to bicker about with “Sorry, Baby”, I did find the individualized chapter structure of the narrative to be a bit disorienting at times, particularly in attempting to discern just where we’re at during the many moments in Agnes’ life. The film begins much later in the arcs of Agnes and Lydie, with them reuniting after an illustrated lengthy distance between them, and from there goes backwards to show us how the former got to be the person they are when we meet them during the film’s intro, and while I wouldn’t have a problem with this aspect if it was told in sequential order after the first flashback, clarity only came in sporadic doses, merely minutes into the various chapters, leaving me feeling a bit distracted for longer than I would’ve cared for, featuring these ambiguous chapter titles that left me more invested in finding the meaning in those, rather than what’s transpiring to each integral scene. It’s not an issue that will conflict with everyone, but for me I always immediately lose a sense of time and place, each time a movie attempts such a framing device, and it makes me wish here that the script would’ve been in sequential order, rather than continuously deviating from five years in the life of Agnes.

OVERALL
“Sorry, Baby” is an authentically rich and cathartically poetic directorial debut for Eva Victor, who uses therapeutic humor to balance the touchy subject matter of such a terrifyingly sensitive moment that could easily come to define her. With unabashed honesty behind such meaningfully measured and layered performances, as well as a sneakily stinging finale that teaches us that we never stop growing from our emotional traumas, the film is proof that Eva was meant to tell such a poignantly vulnerable story, inspiring the heartwarming and heartbreaking sides to life that she embraces like stones from the past that she refuses to leave unturned.

My Grade: 9.2 or A