Sorry, Baby
Directed and Written by Eva Victor
Starring Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, and Louis Cancelmi
Runtime 1 hour and 43 minutes
Premiered at Sundance and acquired by A24

by Fiona Underhill, Staff Writer

This year’s Sundance has seen the sudden arrival of a surprisingly assured new talent, in the form of Eva Victor – who is the writer, director, and star of Sorry, Baby. The film has been at the top of many “best of the fest” lists and has already been picked up by A24, so what’s the fuss all about? Maybe disarmingly, the film is a small, quiet, and contained comedy-drama set at a tiny liberal arts college in upstate New York, but the characters and dialogue will really stay with you long after the credits roll. The story centers around Agnes (Victor) experiencing a sexual assault at the hands of her professor Decker (Louis Cancelmi) while doing her masters, and follows around a five year period in the wake of this event. The strength of the writing is the film’s greatest weapon, as well as Victor’s central performance, surrounded by a small (but mighty) ensemble cast.

Victor’s script is divided into chapters with titles such as ‘The Year When The Bad Thing Happened’ and ‘The Year of the Good Sandwich’ and they are played non-chronologically. Unlike many recent films in the pervasive non-chronological trend, it doesn’t constantly and rapidly cut between time periods, and each section is allowed time to breathe. There is also a clear motivation in telling the story this way – we establish a relationship with Agnes and her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) before we see the incident, and care about them. Trauma also often triggers memory loss, and flashbacks to what happened which don’t follow a neat, linear path.

In a pivotal scene in which Agnes recounts the event to Lydie just after it has happened (which has a similar power to that scene in Eliza Hittman’s Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always), it’s clear that she shut down at several points, and is struggling to remember exactly what occurred and in what order. Victor portrays the complicated relationship that victims can have with the highly-charged moments that they’ve experienced, where things aren’t straight-forward or black and white. Questioning and doubting themselves is nearly always a part of the aftermath, and the film shows that even years later, Agnes is still affected by what has happened, and wondering if she handled it in the right way.

Different people around Agnes (including a doctor, university administrators, and a lawyer during a jury selection process) all react to the incident in obtuse and unhelpful ways. Luckily Agnes gains support from Lydie, her neighbor and F-buddy Gavin (Lucas Hedges), and Pete (John Carroll Lynch), a man who takes pity on her during a panic attack. The film is richly populated by some fantastic character actors, such as Lynch who pops up for one impactful and memorable scene, Kelly McCormack as Agnes’ nemesis Natasha, and ER Fightmaster as Lydie’s wife. It’s great to see Hedges again, after some time away from the big screen, and Ackie continues to make really interesting choices in her career (with highlights including Lady Macbeth and unusual musical movie The Score).

The location scouting and production design of Sorry, Baby has clearly been carefully considered. There are two main locations – Agnes’ isolated house in the woods that frequently make you wonder if the film will veer into full-blown horror movie territory, and the college’s claustrophobic English department which haunts Agnes long after the incident, as she ends up taking over Decker’s job and office. The small-town feel is evident from the fact that Agnes can walk from the department to Decker’s house, and that she can pop over to her neighbor Gavin’s house when she needs lighter fluid or sex. The close community surrounding Agnes has some benefits, as she’s supported, but it also gives a sense that she can’t escape.

In the wake of what happens, Lydie ends up moving out Agnes’ house, going to the big city, getting married and having a baby. But Agnes is trapped. She remains stagnant, as she wants to continue being at the college (despite everything), and in her rural house. The isolation of the house and the insular nature of the college seal Agnes up, imprisoning her in the time and place of her assault and making it impossible for her to move on.

But despite the fact that the story revolves around a rape, Victor’s script is surprisingly light and frequently funny. The warmth of characters like Lydie, Gavin, and Pete really shines through and gives us hope that Agnes is going to be OK. Lydie is completely non-judgmental, and fiercely loyal, and she will do anything for Agnes – whether it’s burn things down or accept her bringing a stray cat home; “whatever you need.” There are some laugh-out-loud moments and lines, not least of which is Pete describing himself as looking like “a yam with a mouth on it.”

Victor being an auteur who writes, directs, and stars in her own work, which has frank, confessional-style dialogue regarding sex, anxiety and more will invoke inevitable comparisons to the likes of Lena Dunham and Joanna Arnow. Victor strikes a tonal balance arguably better than her predecessors though, thanks to having a mix of realistically flawed, but likable characters alongside one or two truly horrible people. Victor’s outlook seems less pessimistic and bleak than the work of the slightly older women working in similar wheelhouse, and views the vast majority of people as basically good.

With Victor being just 30-years-old, and this being her first film, it’s astonishing what she achieves in Sorry, Baby. Although the basic story is fairly simple, the script’s structure and dialogue is not, and she has created several complicated, richly-drawn characters. The film’s atmosphere is really light and delicate, but the traumatic scenes don’t feel in any way clumsy or forced. The way Victor handles and portrays “the event” itself is extremely well thought-out, and the after-effects ripple out through the carefully constructed narrative. Sorry, Baby is a mature and confident debut, with real staying power, and I can’t wait to see what Victor does next.

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