Whatever expectations you may have of trauma narratives, writer-director-actor Victor Eva twists them with remarkable tragicomic volatility in her debut, Sorry, Baby. It바카라s as tonally surprising as it shears off re-victimization. Agnes (Eva) grapples with the fallout of an attack for years. It may not wholly stunt her life but singes every waking night. She tries to shove aside the memory however it underpins her anticipatory moments. The attack leaves her profoundly affected; it remains curled up deep within, rising at sudden intervals. Her guardedness tightens. She may think she바카라s kept demarcated her private life and one as a professor noticeably loved by her students and admired by colleagues. But Victor shows the lines blur.
Agnes has stuck to her New England rural home her entire life. Leaping in non-linear chapters across a five-year-span, the film pivots around Agnes, without wedging itself too much in elaborate, posturingly naturalistic self-dissection. Unlike her peers, she didn바카라t move away from grad school. We see her as a student, brilliant and incisive and attracting the attention of their advisor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi). Her closest friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) teases her about flirting with Decker. She laughs it off. What seems as a casual, friendly equation between the student and the professor mutates into the horrific. Eva doesn바카라t capture the sexual assault. From a distance, we watch Agnes as she shows up at Decker바카라s house. He바카라d called her to discuss her thesis. The morning shades into night when she finally exits. The inkling is immediate. Something has happened. Distance in framing gradually reduces as she appears closer, looking distraught, a shoe in hand and barely pulling herself together. She바카라s racked by disbelief at what just happened. Eva precisely maps the initial reflex of the assailed to genuflect to self-doubt, the slow realization of the full horror. Sorry, Baby has one of the year바카라s most potently devastating close-up confessional scenes, as Agnes processes her attack, recounting the episode in crushing specificity down to her insistent efforts to 바카라move his hand away바카라.
Except her only friend, she is failed constantly wherever she turns. There바카라s rarely empathy, just an awkward bumbling around to do the 바카라right바카라 thing, use the correct verbiage, while being incredibly insensitive. Sorry, Baby is defined by its acerbic gaze. When Agnes approaches the school committee with the assault complaint, the pivotal ensuing conversation is conducted in the most bluntly disrespectful manner. The committee starts acting particular about the small window between her filing the complaint and the accused바카라s resignation. All sorts of genuflections are tossed. Her complaint came many hours after Louis바카라 resignation, they point out. He바카라s already transferred himself to another workplace. Thus, he is no longer their employee and they wouldn바카라t be able to take action. Even as they distance themselves from her situation, removing scope for responsibility, they throw scraps of fake empathy: 바카라we are women바카라. everything about the scene parades the HR-keeling booby traps of authorities and institutions, pulling back where support is needed and citing any kind of technical loophole to expunge their own necessity of hard conversation. Compassion gets kicked in the hurry and deception of crisis management.
No relief floods in; not a word of admission sweeps in. Agnes is struck by how 바카라scared바카라 everyone acts whenever she chooses to open up. But with each time, she바카라s betrayed increasingly. Everyone either actively dissociates, or behaves like they don바카라t know what to do about it. This makes Agnes only stiffen furthermore her guard, not letting people in or have some shape of social life. She returns from work and shuts herself up at the house. For a while, her nice, awkward neighbour Gavin (Lucas Hedges), who has a crush on her, is firmly ignored. Agnes바카라 wariness is naturally borne of the wretched unreliability in the usual, official follow-up procedures. Through the grimness Eva maintains a spry, light touch. Agnes바카라 sharp wit and levity prop up as defense mechanisms.
Sorry, Baby addresses her healing in slow, considered shifts across temporal gradations. Just having a friend who shows up through the years can sometimes carry us through the worst, even as everything feels dire and irredeemable. Through it all-Lydie바카라s going away and her marriage-the friendship remains as unmoving as a rock. The dependable warmth and reassurance of old friends, infused by Victor and Ackie, soothingly holds up the film, softening the press of rejection and disappointment in Agnes바카라 life. Sorry, Baby refuses to douse itself in belaboring melancholy. Consolations and strength can sprout from anywhere: it may be a stray cat, a bark from someone for wrong parking that turns to care. Victor wryly brightens a portrait of a woman healing, learning to unfasten herself again and wrenching on her own terms the empowerment, the kind attention she sought from others. Its final scene has the kind of self-affirming, regenerative power, ringing across cultures and generations, that instantly elevates Sorry, Baby to essential viewing.
Debanjan Dhar is covering Sundance Film Festival 2025 as part of the accredited press.
