Sorry, Baby

Watched at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Gosh, where can I begin? This movie is both hilarious and heartbreaking as it perfectly portrays of both the drama and comedic moments of life despite the harrowing situation that has been encountered. Eva Victor, who directed and acted, crafts an incredible drama that becomes a good character study of finding ways to move on with great dialogue, character dynamics, performances, and direction on the tone and atmosphere throughout.

Presented with good realistic camerawork, structure, and editing, the movie handles it serious themes solely and perfectly. Including great characters, atmospheres and cunning dialogue that are presented throughout the story that achieves the realism and nature approaches or life. There are some dialogue moments that are still burned into my memory which shows how good the dialogue is. Each conversation, choices and structure is held perfectly from Victor with each pacing moment feeling balanced, tone being focused and a good sense of humane style of life. No moment there was something that felt out of place, cheesy or unrealistic.

Eva Victor might be a new voice in cinema pretty soon and I do hope Victor is able to get the chance to shine soon.

Sorry, Baby is one of the most nuanced, simple yet complex telling of the effects and aftermath of a traumatic event in the life of a bright, energetic and youthful woman. Beautifully written, directed and brought to screen with a very balanced, sensitive and realistic performance by debutant Eva Victor. The movie is truly deserving of its premiere and writing award at Sundance and being the closing movie of the director's fortnight at Cannes.

Eva Victor tells her story in a non chronological manner by moving forward and backward in time through five specific chapters representing five very different years of her life. This non linear approach highlights her emotional journey and augments the story telling significantly. The story is simple and the pace of the movie is slow but it is this slow pace and focus on the lead characters subdued emotions when alone mixed with phases of elation when in the company of her best friend that makes the movie so effective.

Eva does a brilliant job channeling the emotions of disappointment, disillusionment, isolation, grief, anxiety and anger mixed with those of hope, resilience and healing. At no point it appears that she is acting and that is what makes her performance and the movie special. Don't expect any cinematic fireworks as Eva makes the audience truly experience the lead character's emotional journey through trauma. Delicate, authentic and realistic. 8/10.

Without spoiling any specific details from the movie, the plot centers around a quiet student turned teacher who tries to overcome a horrific act committed against her.

It isn't a bad film. It's made well, cheap (which is nice to see for a change), and has some good actors, but the issue is that the movie adds nothing that hasn't been said a many times before. There are far better movies and shows about the exact same subject matter from a female's perspective like The Piano Teacher, Unbelievable, Girl Interrupted, Room, Precious, A Promising Young Woman, etc.

The issue with Sorry, Baby is it adds nothing and says very little of what hasn't already been said before. The only difference is this movie is a little more quirky with the humor and is very small scale, which is nice. But the writer throws it all away with a meandering, nonsensical ending that goes nowhere and abruptly ends with no resolution of any kind. I get wanting to keep the discussion open ended, but this felt lazy and uninspired.

Know a lot of people who love this film and maybe I'm the odd one out, but this movie felt incomplete to me. Will be interesting to see what the writer/director/producer/star does next.

I have never walked out of a film before, but I almost did. I'm glad I did not as the film won me over. At first, the absurdly goofy and one dimensional characters and dialog was a turn off. I certainly don't know anyone above the age of ten that acts/talks that way. And the costume "designer" should either never work again, or get an Oscar for the impossibly tasteless and frumpy outfits the lead and a few other actors wore.

But as it settled in, the quiet tone and the lead's obviously neurodivergent behavior made more sense. And the subsequent scenes with her next door neighbor "boyfriend", the sandwich shop owner and the baby at the end of the film were sweet. Ultimately, I got a viewpoint that made me think about it later, and that is what makes art worthwhile.

Sorry, Baby is a slow burn-it takes its time to build tension, and for a while, you're not quite sure where it's going or what it's about. But that's what makes it work. The early pacing is essential; it lets you settle into the characters and truly get to know them before the tension creeps in and the stakes start to rise.

The acting is incredible-subtle, restrained, and deeply natural. It's a masterclass in quiet, grounded performance. There's a scene where the lead delivers a monologue in the tub, and it doesn't feel like she's reciting lines. We're with her in that memory. We're seeing what she saw. I got the sense that some of the film may have been improvised, but if so, it only added to the realism. The whole film has a lived-in, organic quality.

That said, a few of the smaller supporting roles toward the end didn't quite land for me and briefly took me out of the experience. And I'm still unsure what Agnes wanted-what her internal drive was. There's such beautiful artistic depth here, but I couldn't fully grasp what was pushing her forward. Then again, maybe that's the point, as hinted in the final monologue.

There's also powerful symbolism throughout. One moment that stood out was her driving, the headlights trailing behind her like a new memory that will chase her forever. Another was the way the passage of time was expressed through visual shifts, especially at the professor's home. These moments are executed with both restraint and emotional weight.

The film resists cliché. One of its most striking choices is its sense of timelessness. You can't quite place what year it's set in-there are no cell phones, the clothing is neutral, and her thesis is typed on paper rather than submitted digitally. If I had to guess, I'd say 1998. I caught a glimpse of an older New York license plate that reinforced that impression.

Ultimately, Sorry, Baby delivers a quiet but profound message about humanity: we have to be prepared to live in an imperfect world. We will get hurt-that's just part of it-but we have to find a way to keep going.