Sorry, Baby

Eva Victor’s first feature listens where others sensationalize

Despite being one of the most horrific yet ancient of crimes, rape and sexual assault did not receive serious exploration or attention in Western society until the 1990s with the Clarence Thomas Senate hearings, and more intensely after the #MeToo movement in the late 2010s. While a film like The Accused (1988) was ahead of its time in many ways, it was post-#MeToo Hollywood that began producing such films as Revenge (2017), The Tale (2018), The Assistant (2019), Promising Young Woman (2020), and She Said (2022), among others. Yet many of these films—save perhaps The Tale—leaned on twists or gimmicks to sell such an uncomfortable subject to viewers, or to shock them into confronting the horror of the act. The Tale alone approaches a meditation on the lasting echo of harm survivors endure for years, often a lifetime. To that short list now joins Sorry, Baby (2025), another quiet meditation on empathy, resilience, and the isolation survivors feel.

A festival darling, the film won praise at both Sundance and Cannes this year. Sorry, Baby follows Agnes (Eva Victor), an English professor at an unnamed university in the northeastern United States. We glimpse her quiet life with her cat and her reunion with her rambunctious college roommate Lydie (Naomie Ackie). Yet something is clearly unsettled in Agnes. The film flashes back to her graduate school years at the same university, where we witness the root of her trauma: she was assaulted by her professor and advisor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi). The narrative then fills in the years between the assault and the woman we first meet—Agnes forms a tentative bond with her awkward but kind neighbor Gavin (Lucas Hedges) and adopts a stray kitten named Olga.

This is Victor’s first screenplay and directorial debut, alongside her starring role—an explosive introduction to a promising filmmaker. Though she was already recognizable from roles in series like Billions (2016-2023) and Super Pumped (2022), Victor had become better known for her comedy on social media. It was there that filmmaker Barry Jenkins discovered her, encouraging her to share her scripts and ultimately pushing her to direct. The result is a gift for cinephiles everywhere.

Victor’s comedic background proves essential in handling such dark subject matter. Life often veers toward the awkward or absurd, prompting laughter instead of tears, and many comedians have successfully crossed into drama (see Jordan Peele or Bill Hader). Victor’s framing of the assault resists sensationalism or gimmickry. The act itself is never shown: the camera lingers in a wide shot of Agnes entering her professor’s home, and moments later, exiting. Yet the tone shifts—the longer tracking shots suggest a person trapped in time. Even Decker is not drawn as a cartoonish villain, but as an insecure man abusing power over a student. The terror lies in the normalcy of it all. By weaving in humor and filming everyday scenes in a naturalistic, “mumblecore” register reminiscent of Noah Baumbach or Greta Gerwig, Victor illustrates how survivors are everywhere—trying to exist in ordinary spaces while carrying extraordinary weight.

Sorry, Baby’s greatest contribution to the cinematic conversation about sexual assault may be its attention to how society responds to survivors’ stories. Too often we see dismissiveness or awkward posturing. Victor offers the simplest, most humane solution: to be present, to listen, to show empathy. This is rendered most delicately in Agnes’s relationship with Lydie, their scenes are drawn with such care and intimacy that they starkly contrast with the perfunctory reactions of others—doctors, administrators, acquaintances.

Victor demonstrates skill not only as a filmmaker but also as a dramatic actor. Staying true to her naturalistic approach, she embodies Agnes as an ordinary woman: introverted, at times direct or even condescending, but always leading with kindness. She conveys trauma through an internalized restraint that captures the confusion many survivors feel about how to process what has happened and how to “label” themselves moving forward. The supporting cast shines as well—Ackie’s Lydie crackles with energy, Hedges imbues Gavin with sweet male contrast, and John Carroll Lynch delivers warmth as a sandwich shop owner who comforts Agnes in a pivotal scene.

Sorry, Baby is a story of deep trauma and the isolation it carries, but it is not a story of despair. Instead, it emerges as one of the most hopeful treatments of this subject on film. It showcases kindness from many people, from strangers to friends; and it gives hope in an emotional final scene, where Agnes realizes it’s impossible to prevent bad things from happening to us or each other, but we can be there for each other and be good listeners. 

8.7/10