‘Sorry, Baby’ Review: Eva Victor’s Disarming Directorial Debut is One of the Best Films of the Year [A-]
Writer/director/star Eva Victor (Billions) made one of the most confident debuts at Sundance earlier this year in a festival full of incredible entries and if the first image from your film has a kitten in it, well, you’re gonna get me in (don’t worry, nothing happens to kitty).
Agnes (Victor) is getting her PhD in literature and lives a bit of a reclusive life in her hundred-year-old house as she welcomes the return of her friend Lydie (a fiery Naomi Ackie) back to the small, New England town where they went to graduate school. Agnes’s story is told in five chapters, beginning and ending with ‘The Year with the Baby,’ as Lydie announces her pregnancy. Lydie has a girlfriend in New York City, and in classic fashion, the establishment of staying in your hometown while others move away to forge ‘better’ lives takes hold. But it doesn’t feel like that to Agnes; only when the duo meets up with other college friends does the thought rear its ugly head, largely in the form of Natasha (a deliciously venomous Kelly McCormack), a jealous and spiteful friend showing them her new home and digging into why Agnes is still spinning her wheels.
But in between ‘The Year with the Baby’ chapters something bad happens to Agnes, ‘The Year with the Bad Thing.’ Her group’s thesis director, Professor Decker (Victor’s Billions co-star Louis Cancelmi, excellent here) trips over himself with praise for her work and when a meeting in his office is interrupted by his ex-wife asking to take care of their shared sick child, Decker takes off. A text message from him the next day sends Agnes to Decker’s house where the camera locks into place across the street of the three-story house as the day goes on and into the night, only the lights of the first floor on. Agnes enters the house with eagerness and leaves broken. She walks back to her car, drives home and immediately tells Lydie the details of what happened in a stunning, single take scene of virtuoso acting by Victor.
One of Victor’s greatest strengths in her filmmaking trifecta here is her astonishing ability to shift tones not just within scenes but within sentences, taking us from heartbreak to humor in a way that’s never glib or defensively dismissive. Her wit is sharp, a bit Phoebe Waller-Bridge-esque (as is her stature and posture), her dramatic staging is minimal but extremely effective. Her understanding of the Cat Distribution System is perfect. A scene where she hooks up with neighbor Lucas Hedges and teases him about his dick, hilarious. A single scene with John Carroll Lynch, beautiful. It’s easy to see why the Pastel team of Adele Romanski, Mark Ceryak and Barry Jenkins backed this venture. Victor is a singular voice, much like their discovery of Charlotte Wells with her 2022 debut Aftersun, not offering a blanket revelation or resolution but embracing a shared experience of the most vulnerable aspects of lives fictional and real, with fresh eyes and a fresh perspective. Victor isn’t trying to be a voice of her generation, but she is asking you to listen. I’m all ears.
Grade: A-
A24 will release Sorry, Baby in New York and Los Angeles on June 27 and nationwide on July 25.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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