Content warning: This article contains references to sexual violence and suicide.
Editor’s Note: This article is a review and includes subjective thoughts, opinions and critiques.
There are two extended scenes in Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby” (2025) that depict the immediate before and after of a traumatic event. What makes these gut-wrenching episodes so striking is that though they encapsulate the heart of the film — the difficulty of moving on after a tragedy — they are two of the only scenes that aren’t riotously funny.
The film follows Agnes, an English professor whose life has been affected by a bad thing that happened to her during graduate school. Through a series of flashbacks, the viewer is shown key moments when Agnes learns to grapple with the aftermath. It is a touching, nuanced portrayal of resilience in the face of harm — and of Agnes learning that being harmed does not mean she is damaged.
“Sorry, Baby” marks Victor’s feature film debut. She wrote the screenplay, directed the film and stars as Agnes. Victor honed her comedy chops as a standup comedian and writing for “Reductress,” a feminist satirical news site. Making a comedic film about trauma is no easy feat, and yet Victor’s wry sensibility is on letter-perfect display through her trenchant use of observational humor and physical comedy.
When we first meet Agnes, she is awaiting a visit from Lydie, her best friend who has since moved away from their New England university town to New York City. The long-distance friendship is challenging, but it does not interrupt their epic platonic romance. They have the type of relationship where they can share their innermost thoughts with one another. For example, Agnes asks if Lydie has ever noticed that when one is in flagrante delicto and a man asks how enjoyable “it” is, is the referent his genitals, or the quality of the lovemaking? Whatever “it” means, the women cackle at the absurdity of an impromptu short-form survey during sex.
In addition to giving Agnes a much-needed dose of sunshine, Lydie announces that she and her wife are expecting a baby. Agnes immediately understands that it means the three of them will become parents. Even as adult friendships are often eclipsed by romantic relationships, Lydie and Agnes remain as emotionally tethered as they were during graduate school. This is evident as Lydie begins to question whether it’s hard to still live in the town where they survived graduate school. Lydie senses her friend may still be somewhat fragile and leaves with a request: “Please don’t die.” Agnes replies that if she were to die by suicide, she would have done so in the past few years.
As the story travels back through time, we learn that the bad thing that happened to Agnes was an episode of sexual violence. The choice to give Agnes a background in literature is instructive: she deals with language and narrative for a living, but words fail her when she tries to name the event. She also learns about the importance of the bureaucratic “order of operations” after a sexual assault. In a chilling vignette, a middle-aged male doctor tells her she should have treated her body like a crime scene and headed directly to an emergency room for forensics. Lydie, who has tagged along for emotional support, coolly and hilariously tells the doctor to watch his tone.
Crucially, Victor chooses to have Agnes tell Lydie immediately after the assault, but not show it. Instead, a wide shot of the building where it occurred and prolonged silence for several minutes creates a slow bloom of dread. As Agnes recounts being attacked, she describes her attempts to communicate her disinterest and negotiate with the attacker — who happens to be a man she once admired. That she extends sympathy to him even as he harms her underscores the profound violation of trust.
The assault rattles Agnes, yet she manages to finish her degree and achieve professional success. Her resilience is real but knotted with emotional strain. Throughout the film, there are several instances when Agnes declares that she cannot picture herself growing older. This is a shorthand way for her to admit that many aspects of life are unbearable, that picturing the future is unfathomable when the present feels unlivable.
Still, Agnes’s pathway to feeling okay is punctuated with moments of strange vitality. In one of the film’s funniest scenes, Agnes attempts to mercifully kill a mouse. As she runs through her home looking for a weapon to end the creature’s suffering, she chooses a hardcover novel and lifts it over head as if she is chopping wood. It’s the most ridiculous (and therefore funniest) way to put a creature out of its misery.
“Sorry, Baby” is an outstanding debut. It proceeds with the kind of confident wit that makes it an enjoyable film about a heavy subject without downplaying the severity of the assault. Nor does it make the mistake of suggesting everything happens for a reason. It is a great film about a bad thing.