Sorry, Baby
Review by Ryan Michael Painter
Sorry, Baby is the debut feature from filmmaker Eva Victor. The film premiered at 2025’s Sundance Film Festival where it garnered glowing reviews and found itself in the middle of a modest bidding war from a variety of studios including darlings Searchlight, Neon, Mubi, and the eventual winner A24.
Following Sundance, the film closed the Directors’ Fortnight section at the Cannes Film Festival.
Positive indicators to be sure, but anyone who has attended film festivals with any regularity can tell you that audiences, critics, and studios can get drunk on the atmosphere, lose their minds, use hyperbole, and write checks they’ll regret in the morning.
**NOTE: You can read Ryan’s review below, then listen as he and Mark discus the film in more depth. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
103 Minutes, Rated R
Written and Directed by: Eva Victor
Synopsis:
Something bad happened to Agnes. But life goes on… for everyone around her, at least.
Sorry, Baby’s official synopsis is vague. A little too vague in that the “something bad” that happens to Agnes (Eva Victor) is a sexual assault. I point this out partly for those who might be triggered by the subject, but more so because that the way that Victor handles the subject is what ultimately makes the film a tremendous success.
We never see the actual assault. There’s no need to. We see aspects of what comes before and then the aftermath as Agnes describes the incident to her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie). This allows the film to be about Agnes, not the violence, as she makes her way through her trauma without going out of its way to traumatize the audience in the process.
The dialogue is wonderfully awkward, honest, and occasionally hilarious. The structure of the narrative gives a sense of ambiguity to some of the relationships. There are wrinkles that are never quite smoothed out. It’s unpredictable, without being forced or unrealistic.
There are scenes that are incredibly tender. The unexpected moment between Agnes and Pete (John Carroll Lynch) will likely be my favorite scene of 2025. The jury duty scene might be the best written. The scene in the convivence store with the cat is spectacular. The bathtub scene with Gavin (Lucas Hedges) is an instant classic. I could go on and on.
I hate the catalyst for the film’s narrative. I love what Victor has been able to do with it.
Sorry, Baby is on my shortlist for the best film of 2025.
Sorry, Baby stars Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, John Carroll Lynch, Louis Cancelmi, and Kelly McCormack and is in theaters July 25, 2025.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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