SORRY, BABY – Review

Offbeat independent drama/comedy SORRY, BABY accomplishes a rare feat, combining a smart, witty yet touching drama about recovery from trauma with a surprising dark humor and social commentary, while also offering a portrait of the power of true friendship. SORRY, BABY is a different kind of story about pain and healing, a portrait of a quirky, appealing woman named Agnes, who seems fine at work but secretly is stuck still struggling with the pain of a traumatic experience from her graduate student days, while everyone else has moved on. Ultimately, Agnes finds a way towards healing, with the help of her best friend, the only person who really gets her.

Eva Victor directs, wrote and stars in SORRY, BABY, her directorial debut film, which opened at Sundance to critical acclaim. While it finds dark humor in unexpected situations, SORRY, BABY also a drama that always feels honest and real, in that odd, strange way real life sometimes is. That realism is part of the appeal of SORRY, BABY and its tale of pain and healing in real life, seen through a dark humor lens.

When we first meet her, Agnes (Eva Victor) is an English professor at a small New England college but she is still grappling emotionally with a traumatic event that happened when she was a graduate student, where she was a star pupil recognized as a gifted writer. With a quirky, quiet, easy-going personality, the professor is well-liked by both students and colleagues, (apart from one jealous one), but her calm, stoic surface conceals a pain that few know about. Everyone has moved on after her traumatic assault but it still haunts her. Only her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who shares her offbeat sense of humor, really gets Agnes, and understands the depth of her hidden trauma. A visit from Lydie helps Eva recognize how stuck she is, prompting her to move towards healing.

Director/writer/star Eva Victor structures this drama/dark comedy beautifully, starting midway in the story and then flashing back and forward in chapters. SORRY, BABY is divided into chapters and it told out of sequence but does not leave us confused by the end. Starting in the middle lets us see how stuck Agnes is, while life and everyone else has moved on from the trauma that still haunts her. Agnes conceals her pain from her students and colleagues, but it is expressed in odd ways, like using her graduate thesis to paper her windows in place of curtains. The story is told in little chapters with oddball titles, where flashbacks let us see the cause of her pain, and the flash forwards let us see her progress towards healing, as life inevitable moves forward. It is quite an impressive first film, polished, moving and appealing, and one of the year’s best so far.

One of the magical aspects of this film is how it can take a serious scene and wring unexpected comedy from it, while revealing and mocking the false concern and hurtful behavior underneath the surface. After Agnes’ traumatic experience, she meets with representatives of her college, who make all the right concerned noises, while dodging responsibility and doing nothing helpful. It is both strikingly pointed commentary and darkly funny, and not the only scene that fits that description.

Part of the key to that, and the success of the film as a whole, is the cast, particularly Eva Victor and Naomi Ackie. As Agnes and Lydie, the pair are very funny and very believable as best friends who share a weird sense of humor that can’t be suppressed. After Agnes experiences her traumatic event, Lydie is her ever-present support, always there but often with a joke as she staunchly stands up for her friend, when she can’t speak for herself. The scenes where Lydie defends her less-assertive friend Agnes are often laugh-out-loud funny, in situations that are anything but humorous, while the scenes also offer very pointed commentary on how victims of assault are treated by in cookie-cutter fashion by institutions that should be helping.

The cast is strong throughout this indie film, and those excellent performances help this offbeat drama/comedy win us over. Eva Victor gives a splendid nuanced performance, revealing Agnes’s hidden pain in unconventional way, while she maintains a stoic if pleasant face to the world. Only Lydie really sees what is going on, as Agnes struggles with the pain she is stuck in, and Naomi Ackie delivers a winning performance as Agnes’ bestie Lydie.

Other cast members also excel, with Louis Cancelmi, Kelly McCormack and Lucas Hedges in supporting roles, dramatic and comic. All turn in well-crafted performances that support the narrative well, in both its serious or lighter moments.

SORRY, BABY is an unexpected delight, one of the year’s best so far, a unique film that is appealing and moving, offering an different approach to healing after trauma, and a tribute to the power of friendship.

SORRY, BABY opens in theaters Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.

RATING: 4 out of 4 stars