If there is an overarching theme in Sorry, Baby — the debut feature by San Francisco-raised director, writer and actor Eva Victor — it’s about the ordinariness of terrible things.
‘Sorry, Baby’ Conveys the Everyday Ordinariness of Terrible Things
Eva Victor stars in ‘Sorry, Baby,’ which she also wrote and directed. (A24)
Traditionally, most movies like to insist on telling audiences that disasters crash into our lives with lightning strikes and people screaming, soundtracked by heart-wrenching music. The truth is that most of the worst things that happen to humans just roll quietly — and randomly — into lives and chip, chip, chip away. Sorry, Baby is extremely good at capturing the slow, insidious and muted nature of such events.
Set in a rural Massachusetts college town, Sorry, Baby revolves around Agnes (played by Victor), her best friend Lydie (the always delightful Naomi Ackie), a socially awkward neighbor named Gavin (Lucas Hedges), and a cast of mostly unpleasant characters from the local university. (Special shoutout to Kelly McCormack here, who uses her extremely expressive face to turn Agnes’ nemesis Natasha into a figure of comedic gold.)
Sorry, Baby is a movie about sexual violence, power imbalances, dealing with trauma, and the emotional relationships and bonds that carry us through. But its tone never shifts from an everyday beat, in part because of Agnes’ pragmatic nature. The routine of daily activities sits alongside the pain of The Very Bad Thing at the center of her story. Friendships and sexual relationships are rendered naturalistically and believably. Interactions with strangers are consistently, humanly awkward and provide dry humor to proceedings.
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What is less obvious about Sorry, Baby is that it’s also a late-stage coming of age story. Rendered through non-linear time jumps, the movie shows Agnes and Lydie limping to the end of grad school and emerging into post-collegiate adulthood in search of their own paths. These women are undoubtedly grown-ups, albeit ones who haven’t quite figured out themselves or the world yet. In the end, their personal road maps emerge simply because they manage to keep putting one foot in front of the other, regardless of the challenges at hand.
For anyone who has already stumbled through and survived their 20s, Sorry, Baby has few revelations to offer beyond smart writing and a very promising new director. Where the film will resonate most and find its most passionate audience is with young people still figuring out the challenges and injustices of adulthood. Sorry, Baby is a realistically commonplace depiction of both; delicate and lovely, relatable and terrible.
‘Sorry, Baby’ is released nationwide on July 18, 2025. It is currently playing in limited theaters.
