Sorry, Baby review: A stunning debut from Eva Victor
Eva Victor‘s feature directorial debut Sorry, Baby won rave reviews at Sundance this year, and now I fully understand the acclaim. What a beautiful film.
This black comedy-drama tells the story of Agnes (Eva Victor), a literature professor at a New England liberal arts university who lives in the middle of nowhere with her cat. She is seeing her neighbour Gavin (Lucas Hedges), and her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) now lives in New York with her wife.
The film is told in several chapters that depict a different year in Agnes’s life, from her time as a student at that university to the present day. The first chapter is set in the almost present, when Lydie comes to visit for the weekend and they allude to something traumatic happening to Agnes four years before. The following chapters are set in the past and reveal what happened to her and how she dealt with that trauma between then and the present day, when Lydie next comes to visit.
I was really struck by Victor’s writing. The screenplay is sharp, clever, funny and very honest. They could have easily made their film into a dark, harrowing sobfest, but they bring us something different. Sorry, Baby oscillates between being funny and heartbreaking, sometimes within the same scene. They manage to deftly flip between light and dark and take an unexpected, refreshing and nuanced approach to a heavy subject.
One of my favourite aspects was the friendship between Agnes and Lydie – it’s so easy and convincing. I bought into their friendship instantly, and that’s partly down to Ackie and Victor’s chemistry, but also the writing. I know I keep coming back to the script but it really is impressive. And the naturalistic, effortless performances bring Victor’s words to life beautifully.
Sorry, Baby is a remarkable debut from Victor that captures one human experience with unvarnished realism. I can’t wait to see what they do next.
In cinemas from Friday 22nd August. On MUBI from Friday 24th October.