When trauma is experienced, how does one move on with a semblance of normalcy?
That is the question indirectly asked at the centre of Eva Victor‘s stunning Sorry, Baby, a darkly comedic, at times devastating drama that unfolds in the more mundane moments that follow an act of sexual assault; in a wisely unseen moment, we are aware that teacher-in-waiting Agnes (Victor, who also serves as the film’s writer) is forced upon by literary professor Preston (Louis Cancelmi) following a visit to his house.
Told through a series of vignettes that are titled after an event or object that defined the year in focus, Sorry, Baby slowly unfolds as it crosses over the past, the present and the eventual future, with Agnes and her best friend, Lydie (Naomi Ackie, superb), moving along their individual, yet intertwined paths, both affected by the attack, but letting it alter them in opposing manners; the film’s beautiful, final scene bringing the story all together.
Sorry, Baby exists in a sense of quiet stillness, and its the film’s insistence on not making its crux anything of a glorified nature and reveling in the smaller spaces that makes it all the more powerful and, ironically, visceral. Frank questions about her health at a doctor’s appointment and the angering feeling that comes from the female-heavy disciplinary board at the college unable to take action against Preston offset the sweetness and comfort found in Agnes adopting a stray kitten and, later, sharing a roadside sandwich with sweet-natured shop owner Pete (John Carroll Lynch). These are sequences that all equally hold psychological weight, and it’s the masterful pen of Victor that manages to make each of these aforementioned moments just as important as the other, despite the surface level monotony of their appearance.
Victor is truly why Sorry, Baby works as much as it does. They are, quite simply, superb as someone who internalises so much of the pain and desperation felt upon Agnes’s spiral downward. There’s a mischievousness to their delivery throughout that speaks to their obvious dry, black comedic sensibility, and it’s within that jocular mentality that we, as an audience, find the permission in being able to laugh with the film in some of its most uncomfortable moments. Of course, as much as Victor drives the ship, they’re stunningly supported by the likes of Ackie, who says so much with her eyes and unfinished sentences that suggests a far deeper understanding of Agnes’s plight than perhaps thought, Lucas Hedges as the sweet, earnest antithesis of what Preston represented, and Kelly McCormack as a former friend of Agnes, whose jealous cattiness laces a late-narrative sequence that’s as tickling as it is triggering.
Whilst it is dealing with a trauma that is, terrifyingly, all too common, it’s the trust this cast has in one another, as well as Victor’s confidence in their own vision, that elevates Sorry, Baby‘s poignancy and ultimate beauty.
FOUR AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Sorry, Baby is screening in Australian theatres from September 4th, 2025.
