{"id":83787,"date":"2026-11-06T09:45:34","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T01:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=83787"},"modified":"2026-11-06T09:45:34","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T01:45:34","slug":"sorry-baby-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/?p=83787","title":{"rendered":"Sorry, Baby (2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Made with a tiny budget and starring no one most audiences would recognize, Sorry, Baby<\/em> is a truly independent film. It’s also remarkable that one person Eva Victor wrote, directed and starred in it. Only minutes in, I noticed the sharpness of its dialogue and how succinctly it establishes the relationship between two best friends. It uses wry humor to balance out the bleakness of the sexual assault that is at the heart of the film and demonstrates a deep understanding of what recovering from the trauma feels like. I have some quibbles about how it chooses words to use but there’s no denying it’s an outstanding directorial debut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Agnes Ward lives in a college town in Maine, staying in the same house she used to live in as a graduate student. She is overjoyed to welcome her best friend and former roommate Lydie for the weekend. Lydie now lives in New York and is married to another woman Fran. As they catch up with the other members of their doctoral study group, Lydie reveals that she is pregnant while Agnes has been offered a contract as a full-time teacher. The only other member of their group who has stayed in town is Natasha who is resentful that Agnes has been made a full professor so early and accuses her of being the favorite of their former teacher Peston Decker. Lydie is concerned that Agnes has become a shut-in and might be suicidal. Flashback scenes show their lives as students. Preston does indeed seem to go easier on her than the other students. One night when they are supposed to discuss Agnes’ thesis, the professor moves the meeting to his house. There he sexually assaults her and she returns home in a daze to tell Lydie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sharply written dialogue and how it is used to delicately and succinctly flesh out the characters and their relationships is the film’s strongest point. Early on, a scene showing Agnes and Lydie joking about sex with men effectively establishes that they are so close friends that they can easily understand each other without having to say things out loud. The film is mostly about Agnes dealing with the trauma of what happened to her and confronting the incomprehensibility that such evil exists in the world. The character of Lydie represents the Platonic ideal of how a victim should be supported through such an ordeal. Her support is total and unconditional, to the extent of unquestioningly going along with Agnes when she suggests burning Preston’s office down. In another incident when she experiences a panic attack while driving, a random shop owner sits with her and offers her a sandwich. A few other characters serve as examples of what not to do. The male doctor who sees Agnes treats it as a clinical case and makes no effort to sympathize with her as a person. The college administrators offer standard bromides about being women as well but are unable to take any substantial action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victor made this after being herself the victim of a sexual assault which might be why Sorry, Baby<\/em> is so dense with details that feel authentic and lived-in. As good as it is with words, it is equally masterful in leaving things unsaid such as when Agnes reclaims her sexuality with her neighbor. My issue with it is that in striving so resolutely to portray the emotional fallout of sexual assault for the individual victim, it ignores how the society as a whole should approach it. The film has a strong aversion to the word ‘rape’ and apparently in keeping with the words are violence principle, regards using it as traumatic. So when Lydie instead simply calls it ‘that’ and everyone knows what she means given the context, that is meant to be tactful and sympathetic. But I think it’s too much to expect doctors and others who serve in institutional roles to talk like that as well. Surely it’s more important to be clear and unambiguous in their communications as they need to act within the framework of a wider system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s maybe too uncharitable of me as this is an excellent case of the director of knowing exactly what she wants to say and going straight for it. The point of unconditional support is well made at the end even if delivering a monologue to a baby feels a little silly. Its message isn’t my kind of jam as I’m definitely not the kind of friend this film calls for but I can still appreciate how well Victor articulates what she has to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Made with a tiny budget and starring no one most audiences would recognize, Sorry, Baby is a truly independent film. It’s also remarkable that one person Eva Victor wrote, directed and starred in it. Only minutes in, I noticed the sharpness of its dialogue and how succinctly it establishes the relationship between two best friends. … Continue reading Sorry, Baby (2025)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83787"}],"version-history":[{"count":66,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83878,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83787\/revisions\/83878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/calltoreason.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}