'Sorry, Baby': For The Friends Who Stay During The Bad Things
Sometimes stealing cats is okay if you're healing
“It’s a lot, right? Still being here?”
Heads up—this piece and film mention sexual assault—skip it if you need!
I’d had a fucking sucky few weeks before I went to see Sorry, Baby on a Monday night a few weeks ago. I had no clue about this movie (besides wanting to see it during Sundance this year, but I couldn’t because of surgery). I immediately said yes to the screening when I got invited and told my bestie to meet me there.
In Sorry, Baby, we meet Agnes, played by Eva Victor, who wrote and directed the film. Agnes is odd—but not in the annoying manic pixie dream girl type of way. She’s just… kinda weird lol. She’s deadpan, quick, and high-key hilarious. She uses paper torn from books as a makeshift curtain, eats peas (does anyone eat peas outside of shepherd’s pie?) and she is also kind of a genius. Her bestie, Lydie (THEE Naomi Ackie), is the frick to her frack.
They were in school together, roommates and besties, and understand each other on a level that no one else could. Their bond is specific and intimate in that way where they have seen each other in multiple molding stages of their lives. It’s deep, it's layered, it's connected, and most importantly..it works.
Their friendship—well, parts of it—reminds me of the one I have with the person I went to see the film with, my bestie and former (and only) roommate. There’s a scene at the top of the film where the two of them are on a couch, covered in blankets with snacks within reach, just talking, laughing, catching up. It immediately reminded me of all the times we curled up on our own couch, drinking ciders, eating candy, and watching Pitch Perfect or The Dark Knight for the 50th time. Those kinds of moments that may not really feel important when they’re happening, but end up meaning a lot later.
I don’t have a ton of friends, but the few I do have, I love. Specifically, two come to mind—one who lives in another state with his husband, and the other is the one who went to the film with me. I’ve been friends with both of them for over a decade. We all met while working the overnight shift at The Gap, folding jeans and pretending not to be dead tired at 5 am. Those late nights and shared retail trauma were part of what bonded us in a way that stuck. And even though life has put us in different places and situations, it’s still solid.
Watching Sorry, Baby made me think about those kinds of friendships—the ones that stay, even when everything around you changes, or gets messy. Like in the case of Agnes when, as the logline says “something bad happened to Agnes.”
The film unfolds in chapters, and in the first one—The Year With The Bad Thing—we learn that Agnes is an incredibly talented writer, and that her professor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), is the reason for the bad thing. The rest of the film is the fallout and the recovery.
We don’t find out exactly what happened until Agnes spells it out later. But the scene itself is perfectly shot and directed in a way that trusts the viewer. You’re meant to watch, and bring your own mind and your own experiences to it, to fill in the blanks.
We see her walk into the house in daylight. Time passes. The lighting drops fast and eerily, taking us from a dark comedy vibe to a horror movie one for just a few minutes. Then she leaves in a weird, slow hurry—boots in her hand, chaotically half-putting them on as she sits on his steps, then rushing down them and speed-walking out of the frame.
That scene in Sorry, Baby reminded me of something I’ve said many times: films that use rape just to drive the plot fucking bore me. Films that make it the entire plot—even the revenge ones (Promising Young Woman, I’m looking directly at you, bitch)—also bore me. And this might sound weird, but films about rape are rarely done right. I don’t even know exactly what I am looking for when it comes to stories like that, but I definitely know what the fuck I’m not looking for.
There have been exactly two films about this topic that I’d recommend to people: American Mary and Sorry, Baby. That’s it. Not many get it right, but these two—in wildly different ways—absolutely fucking do. They dig without cheapening the experience or turning it into something it’s not.
What Sorry, Baby gets extra right is that it shows the impact of rape on a person’s life without making it their entire identity. It shows how it bleeds into everything else while you’re just trying to keep life going. Agnes isn’t hella flattened or reduced to the “bad thing.” She’s still witty, still weird, still her—just also figuring out how this bad thing has and may shape different areas of her life. Basically, the thing happened, but it doesn’t swallow her whole.
What makes it hit even harder is how it never loses the friendship angle. The only person Agnes has told about the bad thing is Lydie. And Lydie handles it perfectly—because she knows Agnes. It’s a moment that solidifies that this film isn’t just about the bad thing; it’s a love letter to friendship. The truly knowing kind. The kind that reminded me of my own.
Eva is that blend of hella dope writer, director, and actress. I love a triple threat that actually deserves the moniker. We all know my favorite triple threat—Desiree Akhavan—and I thought a lot about Desiree while watching Sorry, Baby—I WANT TO GO TO DINNER WITH BOTH OF THEM AT THE SAME TIME AND JUST FUCKING KICK IT WHILE EATING PIZZA.
Sorry, Baby is their feature directorial debut and it’s just so fucking good. It’s that perfect mix of confident directing and strong writing that makes the film stick with you long after you’ve logged it on Letterboxd.
This movie is for people who often think about the moments that built the friendships they have today.
It’s for the girl who was always up for chilling with me on the couch until 4am and constant presses of the pause button, and for the boy who laughed with me on the corners and trains of a city new to both of us, with nothing but negative dollars in our pockets.
The movie goes beyond being well-written and expertly acted, beyond being beautifully shot with aesthetics that belong on one of those IG film pages with a carousel of stills, and beyond being so perfectly directed that—even with a subject I unfortunately know all too well—I find myself wanting to watch it over and over again.
It’s a lesson in how to take a disturbing, often truly fucked-up subject and keep it human, honest, and connected. It’s so uncomfortably relatable that it’s insane.
Anyway, 10/10 go see it. IDK how films get into the Criterion Collection but SLAP THE GOTDAMN STICKER ON THIS ONE BITCH.
It’s out in selected theatres!
Extras:
If your professor is texting you, it’s already crossed a line. Like BITCH talk to me during office hours only.
I have NEVER SEEN SOMETHING SO ACCURATE as the scene at the doctor’s.
This film features ANOTHER Interracial queer couple. I am begging you to please put two Black queers in a relationship on screen. Like, yes, we all love Fight, and they have a history of fictional relationships with Black women but still. BEGGING PLEADING DEMANDING PLETHE.
Hey, remember that time that Desiree Akhavan responded to my tweet back when Twitter was Twitter and still fun? I DEW BITCH AND I THINK ABOUT IT OFTEN.
Thank you so much for reading Hi Shelli!
As always if you like what you read I hope you consider becoming a paid subscriber <3
i adored this review, so much, that it brought me to tears. reading how you saw the movie, seeing friendship, and all of the elements in between was just a mirror of visibility.
i also appreciated how as as audience we’re meant to piece together the bad thing without being pushed into a traumatic event, like you said. i, too, thought this was so well done. we didn’t have to witness each second to capture the harm, the harm was there and felt but also wrapped around so many other things in her life. and then the ending scene.. ah, by far one of my top films from the year.
again, thanks so much for your review. *chefs kiss*
Ty for saying this about movies relating to rape. Often, media wins awards simply for abusing women— we’ve decided somehow within “high society” that a high quality movie is simply a piece where a woman is suffering. As a lesbian it’s extremely painful.