The first thing to love about writer-director-star Eva Victor鈥檚 extraordinary debut is how she, as the young professor Agnes, tries, and fails, to hide a tryst with her neighbor.
Agnes lives in a quaint New England home where her best friend and fellow former grad student Lydie (Naomi Ackie) is visiting. We are just getting to know each of these characters when a knock comes on the door. Gavin (Lucas Hedges) stands outside confused when Lydie answers. Agnes rushes over to act as though he鈥檚 mistaken her house for his, and not for the first time.
鈥淕od bless your lost soul,鈥� she says, shooing him away.
The plot of 鈥淪orry, Baby鈥� centers around a traumatic experience for Agnes that unfolds in a chapter titled 鈥淭he Year With the Bad Thing.鈥� But it would be wrong to define 鈥淪orry, Baby鈥� 鈥� or its singular protagonist 鈥� by that 鈥渂ad thing.鈥� In this remarkably fully formed debut, the moments that matter are the funny and tender ones that persist amid crueler experiences.
Before her script to 鈥淪orry, Baby鈥� attracted Barry Jenkins as a producer, Victor did improv and made comic social media videos. And the degree to which she鈥檚 effectively channeled her sly sense of humor and full-bodied resistance to cliche makes 鈥淪orry, Baby鈥� the immediately apparent revelation of a disarmingly offbeat new voice.
The film unfolds in five chapters from across five years of Agnes鈥� life, told out of chronology. That, in itself, is a way to place the 鈥渂ad thing鈥� of 鈥淪orry, Baby鈥� in a reshuffled context. Stasis, healing and friendship are more the guiding framework of Victor鈥檚 film.
The opening tenor of 鈥淪orry, Baby鈥� is, in a way, the prevailing one. Agnes and Lydie (a terrific Ackie) are best pals whose jokey chemistry is as natural as their protectiveness of each other. At a dinner with their former literature grad students, Lydie clasps Agnes鈥� hand under the table at the mention of their former thesis adviser.
In the second chapter, the 鈥渂ad thing鈥� one, we find out why. In an unnamed New England liberal arts school, their professor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), is charming and perceptive. He recognizes Agnes鈥� intelligence and seems to respect her 鈥� which makes his betrayal all the more shattering. When the location of one of their meetings shifts last-minute to his home, Victor鈥檚 camera waits outside while day turns to night. Only when Agnes exits, ashen and horrified, do we pick back up with her as she gets in the car and drives.
In the aftermath, the trauma of the rape spills out of Agnes in unpredictable ways and at unexpected moments. With Lydie. Visiting a doctor. At jury duty. With a stray cat. These encounters 鈥� some heartwarming, some insensitive 鈥� are both Agnes鈥� way of awkwardly processing what she went through and the movie鈥檚 way of accentuating how people around you, friend or stranger, have a choice of empathy. Most movingly, in the chapter 鈥淭he Year With the Good Sandwich,鈥� John Carroll Lynch plays a man who finds her having a panic attack, and sweetly sits down with her in a parking lot.
Agnes doesn鈥檛 process her experience the way a movie character might be expected to 鈥� with, say, revenge or sudden catharsis. Hers is a sporadic, often absurd healing that includes turning up at her neighbor鈥檚 house to borrow some lighter fluid. Lydie is key. This is in many ways a portrait of a friendship, and a particularly lived-in one at that. What it鈥檚 not so much is a story about sexual assault. Just as Agnes is sarcastically and self-deprecatingly resistant to convention, Victor鈥檚 film sidesteps the definitions that usually accompany such a story. Originality becomes a kind of survival.
"Sorry, Baby,鈥� an A24 release is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for sexual content and language. Running time: 104 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.
Jake Coyle, The Associated Press
