Sorry, Baby is why I love movies so much. I knew nothing about this film, other than A24 was distributing it, usually a strong sign the movie is higher quality than the regular studio fare. But then you start watching it…and just…your whole body opens up and energizes because you’re watching something daring, brilliant, and wholly uniquely itself. Fitting that the director of this movie is Eva Victor…who belongs to all the spoils of praise this movie deserves.
Victor plays Agnes, a literature professor at a small college in upstate New York somewhere. When we first meet them, they’re being visited by their bff Lydie (Naomi Ackie) having a great friend weekend, despite a forgetful visit from their neighbor Gavin (Lucas Hedges) aside. Yep…things seem pretty lovely on the surface for Agnes…that is, until we see “The Year of the Bad Thing” flash across the screen.
The “Bad Thing” is something 1 in 4 (WTF!!!!!) biological women have to worry about in their lifetimes. That’s a deeply invasive, emotionally destructive event that regrettably usually becomes a defining moment in their lives. There’s no wrong way to process those feelings, but Victor has trailblazed a new movie way to show them with Sorry, Baby. They plant that processing completely in who they are, meaning we’re using humor…and narration. This movie is no better showcase for how “laughter can be the best medicine. ” I’ve seen so many scenes in doctor’s offices after a bad thing, that are the most powerful dramatic moments of the film they’re in. Victor completely bypasses that move layup, and chooses to focus on the doctor’s diagnosis and laugh in his face at how “terse and serious” he is, and how he needs to “dial it way back down.” This was so jarring and disarming for my audience…until one person burst out laughing, which let the tension out of the theater, a joke’s superpower. When in public, Victor defaults to wry dark humor and direct dictation of her thoughts to not only help themselves process how they feel, but to also make them approachable while they’re completely stuck in that mental place they’re trying to escape. We’re not living in denial either; being alone is when Agnes puts on the serious face and really goes to those dark places movies about bad things usually go to, escaping the spiral thanks to their true BFF Lydie (Naomi Ackie and Eva Victor are both excellent in this movie). Sorry, Baby pulls of the impossible: thanks to the talented director’s mastery of tone.
Which then comes to the writing, which in any just world would get an Oscar Nomination. The movie’s framing is ingenious. We meet Agnes devoid of their life’s context, just having a great weekend with their bestie. The seemingly benign opening sequence is a masterclass of laying groundwork: we meet Gavin, eat a sandwich, play with a kitten, go to a really weird dinner with Lydie/Agnes’s grad student “friends,” etc. You know, stuff that would happen when someone comes to visit. Low key, Victor is also pointing out weird stuff: why is Agnes uncomfortable in a professor’s old office? Why doesn’t she leave home often? Why does Lydie directly dress down her and Agnes’s friends when they are condescending? Why is she openly joking about suicide? The “Bad Thing” is next, delivering the message without being ickily voyeuristic. After that? Victor shows us how the road through trauma is nonlinear…and can happen at any point in time. Those little Easter eggs at the beginning bear fruit through the story, as we see why Agnes puts so much meaning in random people, places, and things. Each little breakthrough unshackles our protagonist from the bad thing and it’s place in time, helping them consider a future they didn’t know was even possible after a bad thing like that happens.
Eva Victor, I’m so sorry this has happened to you. Sorry, Baby. Not that it means anything, but thank you for telling us your story, and providing a new way for one of those survivors like you another way to move on. And, to find a great bff like Lydie. A smaller thank you for giving Naomi Ackie a great part like this: she’s been one of my faves forever, and is overdue to be in a great movie like yours.