#208: Sorry, Baby
Release Date: June 27, 2025
Format: Streaming (HBO Max)
Written by: Eva Victor
Directed by: Eva Victor
3.5 Stars
Kudos to writer/director Eva Victor for occupying my mind with her film Sorry, Baby for the last 24 hours (Victor apparently uses she/them/her/their pronouns interchangeably; sorry ahead of time if that is in fact not true).
The reason the film has been occupying my mind is twofold:
First, it’s beautifully rendered. The texture of the film is pretty remarkable. Shot on location in Massachusetts, it feels lived in and melancholy. This is a winter movie through and through. If this debut film is any indication, Victor seems to have a knack for tone and emotional nuance. I think she would be rewarded for trusting her instincts even more in her next film and getting even further away from traditional film plotting and story emphasis.
Speaking of the story, it centers around an English grad student named Agnes. Agnes is smart - possibly brilliant - and good. She is an exceedingly good person. She is a good friend, a good citizen, and a good human being. She is special in her goodness, and this causes a detachment in a way. She doesn’t fit in necessarily, and is often misunderstood. But she is good, and special, even if she seems to float above and away from others.
Then one day she is sexually assaulted at the home of her English professor and mentor. It’s an awful thing, obviously, that Victor handles tenderly and honestly in her script. It’s brave of her as a writer to show Agnes deal with the sexual assault with more than just sadness. We see her navigate her trauma with doubt, and even humor, as well. But remember, Agnes is special, and she ultimately transcends this trauma. She finishes grad school and gets her dream job as a full-time English professor. She even has time to rescue a cute cat, and the film ends with her giving soulful, sage advice to her best friend’s infant child.
What a person, that Agnes!
As I was drying a tear from the corner of my eye, the credits rolled and I couldn’t wait to see who wrote and directed this beautiful movie: “Written and Directed by Eva Victor.”
Who is Eva Victor? I grab my laptop.
Oh.
She plays Agnes. She wrote this character for herself?
Huh.
Confused feelings started flooding my mind.
Is this…a vanity project?
This is the second thing about the movie that’s been been occupying my mind since I watched it, this fear that it might be an ego-driven vanity project.
For example, there’s a scene in the film that I originally liked where Agnes gets selected for jury duty (this is after her sexual assault). An attorney wants to know if the potential jurors have ever been a victim of a crime. Agnes raises her hand, but is understandably reluctant to share her experience. She tells the attorney and judge that she doesn’t understand the justice system; they seem perplexed by her. She volunteers some thoughtful admissions about her unique circumstances, including that she thinks she better serves her civic duty with her work as a college professor. The judge and the attorney confer with each other, and they release Agnes, this young lady who just doesn’t seem to conform to anybody’s expectations.
It’s an effective scene, but it was shaded for me when I learned that Victor wrote this scene for herself. There’s an inherent ego involved now. The scene is written to detach Agnes from the banal, trivial pursuits of regular humans. She is above this charade. The judge and attorney seem almost silly in comparison to Agnes.
I don’t know, maybe I’m just not able to separate the art from the artist in this circumstance, but it seems like Eva Victor is purposefully conflating herself with Agnes. It put a bitter taste in my mouth.
Nobody likes the smartest person in the room, and I’m having a tough time talking myself out of the notion that Agnes is a stand-in for Eva Victor. It complicates my emotional response to the film. Instead of being an altruistic, redemptive character, there is an undertaste of vanity now, of a young writer writing herself into her debut film as the smartest and goodest person imaginable.
Eva Victor might take note of Charlie Kaufman, who always bases his protagonists on himself, and who are always embarrassing and shameful losers. Shoot, Sylvester Stallone famously wrote Rocky for himself when he was a nobody, but he had the wherewithal to make the character dumb and lose the match at the end (Stallone’s vanity came later, and led to his career downfall).
So here’s what I think. I think Sorry, Baby is a terrific movie from a talented writer/director with an ego. She’s young, so I’ll chalk the ego up to that. I look forward to seeing her next film.
