Eva Victor has made an astonishing debut feature — writing, directing, and starring in the jarringly humane comedy Sorry, Baby.
The Sundance buzz on this one was strong from the start, with critics cheering its unique voice. Then Victor won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award out of the fest, and the film got acquired by A24, the cool boutique distribution studio behind such hits as Lady Bird, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and Midsommar. But don't let the prestige that already surrounds this Sundance selection fool you. Sorry, Baby isn't an esoteric arthouse offering, but a gently sensational movie about being harmed and healing, made all the more remarkable because it's Victor's first film.
Before she was a multihyphenate moviemaker, Victor was making her mark online with hilarious viral videos, like her satirizing of Straight Pride Month complaints or doing a spot-on impression of a glamorous woman who definitely didn't murder her husband. In these videos, Victor is scalpel-sharp in parodying archetypes of conservative hysteria and film noir with equal ease. Yet her movie doesn't share this madcap energy — and wisely so! That brand of humor might get grating when stretched to a feature-length format, or more likely it'd undercut the serious subject matter that is at the heart of Sorry, Baby.
Instead, Victor carefully calibrates a tone that is all at once bracingly honest and charmingly offbeat.
What's Sorry, Baby about? (Trigger warning ahead.)
The log line out of Sundance was vexingly vague: "Something bad happened to Agnes. But life goes on… for everyone around her, at least." However, having seen the film, I can appreciate how this vagueness speaks to the filmmaker's careful tone in addressing its "something bad."
More a trigger warning than a spoiler: Agnes (Victor) has been sexually assaulted by a trusted acquaintance. This event plays at the center of the film, but is treated less like a shocking reveal and more like the gentle peeling back of an onion. Built in three chapters, Sorry, Baby begins near the end, "The Year With the Baby." Years after the assault, Agnes is being visited by her best friend and grad school roommate Lydie (Blink Twice's Naomi Ackie), and the two have a cozy intimacy that allows them to speak in a shorthand we can witness but not fully understand. What's clear is that while Lydie has blossomed — building a life of her own with a partner and soon-to-be-baby — Agnes has become stuck in a reclusive rut. The cause for this is delicately unveiled in chapter two, "The Year with the Bad Thing."
In this extended flashback, Agnes is a grad student, dedicated to her thesis under the tutelage of a trusted professor (Louis Cancelmi). The bad thing happens off-screen, with the camera waiting outside the house for Agnes as the sky goes from day to night. Then, she will come home to Lydie and talk out what happened, grasping to understand it even as the words flow. Still, the word "rape" feels too big and maybe too concrete. So, even as they go to urgent care, the word is not one they choose, but rather is thrown at them by a bored male doctor.
While all of this sounds grim, Victor weaves absurdist humor throughout, recognizing the deeply ridiculous moments that exist even in the midst of trauma. Through this complexity, she also showcases moments of grace, breadcrumbs that lead us to how a person might pull through a bad thing to find something beyond it.
A subtle yet sublime example of this balance occurs in a chapter set years after her assault. Driving away from the grad school where she is now a teacher, she pulls over on the side of the road, her body rattled with a panic attack over a revelation that's hard to handle. A bald and burly man with a grimace as wide as his neck shoves his face to her car window, bellowing at her that she can't park here. But once he sees her hyperventilating, his barking resolve melts.
In a perfect bit of casting, John Carroll Lynch, who's played a suspected serial killer in Zodiac and a gentle gynecologist in Babes, switches from one gear to the other in the blink of an eye. His tone softens and warms as this stranger coaches Agnes through a breathing exercise, then he asks if she wants a sandwich. It's a sweet but bizarre thing to say. A moment later, they sit before his sandwich shop, and there's not only context but an elegant and sincere moment of two strangers connecting. This is what makes Sorry, Baby extraordinary, how Victor seamlessly connects empathy and anxiety.
Sorry, Baby masterfully blends tones and a top-notch cast.
The film begins and ends with "The Year with the Baby," centering on two pivotal visits from Lydie, who gently nudges Agnes to consider if her life is one she wants or has surrendered to. She lives in the same house they rented as graduate students, stayed at the same school, and associates with the same group of friends, even though they seem to have outgrown each other. But Lydie is her ride-or-die, even though she's moved away from the quaint New England college town to New York City. And through her encouragement, Agnes begins to find her way out of the rut she's dug.
In between these times, Victor gives herself a role that's far from the vanity project stuff of many a first-time male director at Sundance. Her character is not some effortlessly charming rogue, just waiting for the world — or some hot A-list actress — to catch on. Agnes is deeply awkward, offering a hook-up to a open-hearted neighbor (Lady Bird's Lucas Hedges) then commenting carelessly on how his penis looks while soft. (He is understandably mortified, albeit momentarily.) In these socially awkward moments of naked honesty (literal and metaphorical in this case), Victor allows us into the intimate world of a woman lost. Her underbelly is soft, and her impulses can be weird and messy. And in that, it's impossible not to fall for Victor's Sorry, Baby as it embraces the mess that is growing from hurt to healing.
Building this world with her is Ackie, as a bestie with a sharp eye and sharper tongue to any who'd cross her friends. Hedges is heart-wrenching as a gentle would-be beau. Lynch is electrifying in a small but pivotal role. Kelly McCormack, who stood out as a no-shit-taking shortstop in A League of Their Own, brings a neurotic buzz as a frenemy who brims with professional jealousy. I could go on, as every supporting player from the uncaring doctor (Marc Carver) to a pressing lawyer follows the shifting tone of Victor's screenplay with aplomb.
Collectively, they all build a story that's unique yet familiar, and a world we know but with a twist of wry humor that makes its rough edges a bit more bearable. So in the end, as the meaning of Victor's title falls into place, the effect is a bit devastating, but ultimately cathartic. Bittersweet, brilliant, and heartwarmingly funny, Sorry, Baby is a movie that is sure to find an audience beyond Sundance. And not just because A24 is a master of marketing offbeat cinema, but because Victor has a voice that is strong, strange, and demands to be heard.
Sorry, Baby was reviewed out of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.
