Sorry, Baby

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.

Agnes (Eva Victor) is a student who experiences something bad with her professor Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi). As she tries to heal from this she experiences many different types of relationships over the years from close ones with her friend from college Lydie (Naomi Ackie), to the saviour complex between her and a mouse that her cat Olga (Noochie the cat) brought in years later.

I won't be so arrogant as to say I understood the nuances of the film, although I recognise that Eva Victor who also wrote and directed the film, was saying something about the relationships we have with people and how the communication between us can be very different and layered. Who you are with one person is not who you are with another. There is a fluid dynamic of personality in and between relationships. I suspect that's why nabokov's book Lolita was discussed in the film: there were very different dynamics and power levels in the relationships within the story of Lolita.

It's not a film where you come out of the cinema and say "wow that was fantastic." It's more of a film you come out of the cinema and you remember lines from the film, and scenes form it for weeks, as you piece everything together and apply it to your own life. Who are you and who are the people in your life?

Victor's presence on screen is amazing and her acting skills sublime; I've never seen her before but I will certainly look at some of her other work. Her direction was amazing and not a single moment of the film was wasted. Some of the shots and scenes were pure art.

Suffice to say I loved this film and everything about it, I gave it a solid 8.

Beautiful acting by the lead, but the script lacks full development of the characters. Hard to understand main character's motivation. No development of origin. Also, she has no family. Why?

Lastly, portrayal of males was 1 dimensional and unbalanced. We see the sociopath, the nice but weak guy, the main doctor, and the strangely helpful but random older man. But we don't have the presence of one strong male in Agnes' life. That would have made this movie much better and more balanced.

Without that, you get a gut punch of having watched something really terrible happen to a nice person without any real good explanation and without enough redemption.

As such, it was unpleasant without enough redemption.

Eva Victor's story highlights Agnes's journey post a traumatic experience as life moves on. Agnes tries to move on but the trauma doesn't let her while she really is unable to take legal course of action. The story focuses on her emotional journey as she acknowledges the bad thing that happened to her and tries hard to live with it. The world is such, thet bad things just happen and it is never easy being a woman in the said world.

This is the kind of film that rendered me speechless. It started off casually with an overdose of the F words which helped showcase Agnes's bond with Lydie. But the 5 minute scene of her confiding to Lydie over what really happened, made me sit up. What followed next was simply terrific piece of writing and execution. Eva brought Agnes's character alive and her way of dealing with what happened was simply holding a mirror to us, the viewers. This is not the film about Agnes fighting for justice but a film about her fight to survive, move on and worse, accept the bad thing. The way she pushes herself to learn to live with it, was indeed a tough watch.

What makes the screenplay terrific is how Eva Victor tries to insert humor into the narrative. I felt sad with Agnes while having a chuckle now and then despite the grim moments. She really struggles to get on with her life and hyperventilates, which is a normal thing that one expects from her. Then the narrative shifts to showcasing that the bad thing just happens and Agnes has to live with it, leaving us the audience to accept the very thing as normal. It's infuriating to feel the helplessness of the character but also hold onto the hope of her pulling through. The rest of us are like Pete, while the countless Agnes' are made to move on with their lives and apologizing for the world we have created.

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.