In life, bad things happen all the time. Sometimes they’re small, relatively harmless bad things, like burning the roof of your mouth on your coffee, or getting a flat tire. But sometimes, they are very bad things – the kinds of things that forever change your worldview.
“Sorry, Baby” revolves around the second type of bad thing. Written and directed by Eva Victor in their feature debut, “Sorry, Baby” also stars Victor as Agnes, a college professor struggling in the aftermath of sexual assault. Through their specific sensibilities and a sensitive directorial style, Victor explores how experiencing assault fundamentally shifts the way you interact with the world. It’s a searingly honest portrayal of the healing process, rife with pain, humor, and tenderness, just as intent on exploring the ways in which we help each other as it is the ways in which we hurt.
Set against the bitter cold of Massachusetts, “Sorry, Baby” is told nonlinearly, beginning long after the bad thing happened when Agnes’ friend Lydie (Naomie Ackie) visits to tell Agnes that she’s pregnant – as much of a life-altering revelation for Agnes as it is for Lydie. It’s the following section (aptly titled “The Year With the Bad Thing”) where we learn what exactly happened to Agnes.
Victor finds a way to sensitively portray Agnes’ assault without detracting from the terror of the moment. We see Agnes enter her professor’s home during the daytime and from a distance. We hear the professor (a well-cast, ominously unassuming Louis Cancelmi) ask Agnes to take her boots off before the door shuts. The shot cuts from day, to dusk, to night, lingering in each frame, letting the tension slowly build before Agnes abruptly exits, grabbing her boots and opting to put them on outside rather than in the house. The professor lurks behind her in the doorway, saying nothing.
It’s one of the film’s strongest visual moments, one that fills you with dread – you don’t have to see what happened, but you know exactly what happened. In the moments that follow this one, nothing about the rising tension feels forced. When Agnes tells Lydie what happened in one long, interrupted close up, her tone is calm, almost robotic – she even tries to joke a little bit, although it falls flat.
There are two scenes in “Sorry, Baby” – one where Agnes meets with a doctor to report the assault and one where she meets with the college administration – that do feel slightly forced, both very interested in being didactic about the horrible ways in which institutions we are supposed to trust handle the issue of sexual assault. That’s not necessarily an incorrect judgment (far from it), but the scenes feel a little out of sorts with the rest of the film’s honesty. Too rarely do we actually react to the terrible things that happen to us with righteousness. Too rarely do we know the exact right thing to say.
It’s everything outside of those two scenes, and how Victor captures the muddled feelings that can arise after experiencing a traumatic event, that make “Sorry, Baby” stand out. In one sequence, Agnes is called for jury duty and asked if she has ever been the victim of a crime. She never reported the assault to the police, so no one knows about it except Lydie – and now this group of complete strangers. Despite Agnes’ best efforts to deflect with humor, as it becomes clear to the jury, the prosecutor, and the judge what happened, you can feel the discomfort in the room rise.
The way people react to Agnes and what happened – whether it’s Lydie’s undying loyalty, a doctor’s exasperation, or this group of strangers’ pity – is essential to the point “Sorry, Baby” is trying to make. We can’t control when bad things happen, and we can’t control how other people react. That’s what makes finding those moments of healing, of real community, so beautiful.
In another interaction with a stranger who helps her come down from a panic attack, the stranger (a remarkable John Carroll Lynch) invites Agnes to have a sandwich with him on the sidewalk. The reasons for Agnes’ panic attack arise, and she admits to feeling guilty about the fact that she has started to think about the assault less and less over the years. When the stranger asks Agnes if she feels safe in her own home, she dryly responds, “Yes, I have a cat.” It’s a moment for a laugh – a cat can’t really protect from an intruder – but Lynch’s character responds with teary-eyed seriousness, glad to know that Agnes has some form of comfort.
These moments feature a welcome mix of vulnerability, anguish, and humor that marks “Sorry, Baby” at its best. As Agnes learns, and later imparts to Lydie’s baby, protecting someone from all the bad life has to offer is near impossible – the best you can do is offer them something good to counteract.