14 Jun SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW – ‘Sorry, Baby’ is achingly beautiful, bittersweet, and deeply funny
It is not often that a film this gently devastating, this funny and specific and alive, feels so completely like a singular vision. But that is what Eva Victor has accomplished with Sorry, Baby, a debut feature so confident and textured that it feels like the work of a seasoned auteur. Wielding the full force of her own talents as writer, director, and star, Victor crafts a portrait of trauma and healing that eschews sensationalism in favour of something far messier, more humane, and ultimately more affecting.
Despite a deceptively simple structure, this is a layered, quietly bold character study that dances between years, tones, and moods with astonishing finesse. It is a film that intimately understands how time shapes memory, how friendship can be a lifeline, and how grief is rarely linear. Sorry, Baby is that rare thing: a story about surviving that never flattens its protagonist into victimhood, but instead honours her as a fully lived-in, flawed, funny, complicated person who still has so much left to give. It’s undoubtedly one of the most impressive debuts in recent memory and one of the most unforgettable films of the year.
The narrative unfolds in three titled chapters, each offering a distinct yet interwoven glimpse into the life of Agnes (Victor), a graduate student-turned-literature professor living in a quaint New England college town. The film opens with the final chapter, “The Year with the Baby,” as Agnes receives a visit from her longtime best friend and former roommate, Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who has returned from New York pregnant and glowing.
Their reunion is immediate and warm, as the two settle into an easy rhythm built on shared shorthand, years of closeness, and unspoken wounds. Agnes, however, remains stuck in a quieter, more muted place, still residing in the same grad school cottage, still navigating the same campus where something happened years ago. Through subtle gestures, half-spoken memories, and the presence of her new neighbour Gavin (Lucas Hedges), we sense that something beneath Agnes’ carefully composed surface remains unresolved. Lydie’s return stirs it all back up.
Then comes the middle chapter, “The Year with the Bad Thing,” which quietly reframes everything. Here, we meet a younger, more buoyant Agnes, still knee-deep in her thesis and thriving under the mentorship of a charismatic professor named Decker (Louis Cancelmi). He praises her work, encourages her ideas, and ultimately invites her to his home to discuss her paper. What happens next is never explicitly shown. Instead, Victor leaves the camera outside, letting time pass in a hauntingly static shot as daylight shifts to evening and finally to night.
Agnes emerges changed, disoriented, and unravelled. Back at home, she haltingly recounts what occurred to Lydie, who listens with remarkable calm and compassion. The word “rape” is never said aloud by Agnes, but the implications are unmistakable. Instead, it is callously thrust upon her by an indifferent male doctor during a visit to urgent care. What follows is a slow reckoning, not only with the event itself but with the way her peers, her school, and the systems around her respond to her pain.
There’s a confident tonal complexity here that’s striking. Victor does not approach trauma with bleakness or histrionics, but with a sense of lived-in truth, allowing moments of absurdity, awkwardness, and humour to coexist with sadness. That balancing act is an enormous part of what makes the film so compelling. Victor captures the way people actually talk about these things: in fits and starts, through coded language, with unexpected moments of levity breaking through the grief.
Agnes and Lydie’s conversations are the heartbeat of the film, rich with specificity and inside jokes that make their bond palpable. When Lydie tells Agnes about the baby, Agnes dryly asks if she’s going to name it Agnes. It’s a throwaway line, but it speaks volumes about their connection. The performances are never showy, never seeking pity. Instead, they feel like real people figuring things out in real time, trying and failing and trying again.
As a performer, Victor is remarkable. She approaches Agnes with subtlety and restraint, drawing a clear distinction between the versions of her we see across the film’s three chapters. In grad school, there’s a spark in her step, a freedom in her body language that slowly disappears as her world begins to close in. In the present day, she is quieter, more cautious, often folding into herself. And yet, throughout, Victor allows glimmers of the old Agnes to shine through. A laugh, a glance, a moment of eye contact with Gavin. This is a performance of tiny details, where even posture tells a story. Agnes’ journey isn’t defined by one event, but by the slow, messy, courageous process of living through its aftermath.
Ackie is luminous as Lydie, providing not just emotional support but a grounding counterpoint to Agnes’ inward spiral. Ackie imbues Lydie with both fire and gentleness, making her a friend anyone would be lucky to have. Theirs is not a dynamic built on melodrama or emotional dumping. Instead, it’s a portrait of deep female friendship, one that persists even when life takes them in different directions.
They get frustrated with each other. They disagree. But there’s an unmistakable love that underpins everything, and Ackie and Victor have such crackling chemistry that you believe every second of it. Lydie’s arc could have easily been sidelined in a different film, but here it’s given weight. She’s not just the supportive best friend. She’s her own person, with her own life and choices, and her evolution adds meaningful contrast to Agnes’ arrested development.
Hedges, too, brings warmth and awkward charm to Gavin, Agnes’ neighbour and eventual romantic interest. Their scenes together are delicate and often funny, capturing the hesitations and vulnerabilities of someone trying to let love in again. There’s no big romantic gesture, no sweeping score to announce their connection. Just small, tentative moments of trust being built. It’s refreshing to see a film that acknowledges how hard it can be to open yourself up after trauma, and Hedges handles it all with a light touch. His connection with Victor is subtle but effective, playing less as a grand love story and more as a quiet reminder that healing often comes through connection, even in its smallest forms.
The film also makes excellent use of its supporting cast. Kelly McCormack is particularly memorable as a former classmate of Agnes and Lydie’s, bringing acidic humour and a dose of reality to scenes that might otherwise verge on the sentimental. Her character’s misguided animosity toward Agnes is both cutting and understandable, revealing how people project their own insecurities onto others in ways they don’t even fully grasp. As the professor whose actions haunt Agnes, Cancelmi wisely underplays the role, never becoming a cartoon villain. He’s charming, intelligent, and ultimately insidious in the way that predators in positions of power often are. It’s a smart choice, and one that makes his scenes all the more uncomfortable.
And then there’s John Carroll Lynch, who makes a strong impression in a small but quietly potent role as a sandwich shop owner who becomes an unexpected source of solace for Agnes during a moment of acute distress. In a single, poignant scene, Lynch brings his signature warmth and understated gravitas to the role, offering a calm presence that helps ground Agnes as she navigates a panic attack. His gentle demeanour and empathetic listening provide a brief but meaningful respite for Agnes, highlighting the profound impact of simple human kindness. Lynch’s portrayal of Pete stands out as a testament to the healing power of compassion, making his brief appearance one of the film’s most memorable moments.
Visually, Sorry, Baby is a quiet marvel. Shot on location in Massachusetts, the film captures the stillness and melancholy of small-town academia with an eye for texture and detail. Mia Cioffi Henry‘s cinematography favours soft natural light and wide frames that allow characters to move and breathe within the space. There’s an intimacy to the visuals that mirrors the emotional tenor of the story. One of the most powerful images in the film is Agnes standing outside Decker’s house, the camera watching from across the street as day turns to night. It’s a stunningly restrained choice, allowing the viewer to fill in the blanks while never letting them forget what took place. Throughout, Victor and Henry resist easy visual clichés, instead opting for a grounded, observational style that suits the material perfectly.
What’s especially impressive is the way Victor balances multiple tones without ever feeling disjointed. One moment we’re laughing at a perfectly timed joke about jury duty, the next we’re aching with Agnes as she stumbles through a conversation about what happened to her. The humour never undercuts the drama. Instead, it enriches it, making the characters feel real and reminding us that even in our darkest moments, life continues to be strange and absurd. Victor’s comedic sensibility is sharp and dry, and it’s used not to deflect from the trauma, but to navigate it. That approach makes the heavier scenes hit even harder.
What makes Sorry, Baby feel so vital and resonant is the clarity, restraint, and emotional accuracy with which it approaches the subject of sexual assault. Victor’s screenplay refuses to sensationalise or catastrophise Agnes’ trauma, instead peeling it back gradually and truthfully, like memory itself. The film never reduces the assault to a plot device or climactic reveal. It allows the incident to sit in silence, to linger unspoken between characters and across time, capturing how many survivors process their experiences not through declarations, but through confusion, denial, and reluctant realisation. From the way the camera stays outside the house during the pivotal scene, to Agnes’ nervous but determined attempts to voice what happened to her, the film offers a perspective rooted in lived-in empathy, quiet fury, and an insistence on emotional truth.
The nonlinear structure, while mostly effective, occasionally undercuts some emotional momentum. There are moments when, just as the tension or catharsis of a scene is building, the film jumps in time, leaving us briefly disoriented. It’s a minor complaint in a film that otherwise manages its tone and pacing so well, but one that keeps the film from feeling entirely seamless.
Still, it’s a minor quibble in a film that accomplishes so much with such apparent ease. Sorry, Baby is the kind of astonishing feature debut that makes you excited not just about this film, but about whatever Victor chooses to do next. It announces the arrival of not just a brilliant actor, writer, or director, but all three at once. Victor’s voice is clear and distinctive, her empathy boundless, and her perspective urgently needed. This is a film about surviving that never feels exploitative or manipulative. It’s about friendship, memory, trauma, and the small moments that move us forward even when we feel like we’re standing still.
By the time the final chapter draws to a close, and Agnes stands a little straighter, it feels like a triumph. Not a neat resolution, but a hard-won step forward. Sorry, Baby doesn’t pretend healing is easy, or that everything will be okay. But it does offer hope in the form of connection, and in the resilience of people who keep showing up for each other. It’s an achingly beautiful, bittersweet, and deeply funny film that lingers long after the credits roll. Agnes might not be okay yet, but she’s still here. And in this world, sometimes that’s more than enough.
Distributor: VVS Films
Cast: Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Louis Cancelmi, Kelly McCormack, Lucas Hedges, John Carroll Lynch
Director: Eva Victor
Producers: Adele Romanski, Mark Ceryak, Barry Jenkins
Screenplay: Eva Victor
Cinematography: Mia Cioffi Henry
Production Design: Caity Birmingham
Costume Design: Emily Costantino
Editors: Alex O’Flinn, Randi Atkins
Music: Lia Ouyang Rusli
Running Time: 103 minutes
Release Date: 4th September 2025 (Australia)