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The writing in Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby won her the Waldo Salt screenwriting award at Sundance, and her voice is indeed sharp and withering and brilliant. Agnes (Victor) is a grad student in English literature at a small New England college who has just completed her thesis when a traumatic event (the film just refers to it as “the bad thing”) happens to her. She lives in her head, and so she observes the effects of that trauma with the same hyper-intelligent, slightly exasperated detachment with which she approaches life in general.
“Agnes embodies a feeling of constant doom, but she never loses her joy—that’s the difference between Sorry, Baby and other films that fail to come correct to this delicate subject matter,” Dylan writes. “Eva Victor understands that even in the worst moments of our lives, and in the aftershocks, we are still us.” Her specificity of voice enables the mastery of tone cited in multiple reviews of the movie: Ema notes that she’s “always in control… even when it shifts from funny to heartbreaking.”
But the writing isn’t the only thing worth praising in this drama. Victor, of course, feels real and natural in her role—she wrote it (with Barry Jenkins’ PASTEL producing). But Naomi Ackie also slides into her part as Agnes’s best friend and roommate Lydie like a pair of old jeans, pointing towards Victor’s skill as a director as well.
The official description for Sorry, Baby is vague, but it should be noted that this film is about the sensitive subject of sexual assault. Don’t let that keep you away if you’re a survivor, however: This is a special film, empathetic and understanding and so relatable and funny. “Can’t write about this one without choking on my own experiences with the subject matter. What I can write is this: Sorry, Baby nails it,” Claira confirms. KR
