EIFF 2025: Sorry, Baby
Writer, director, and actor Eva Victor announces herself as a huge talent with this debut feature, which poignantly explores a 20-something grad student dealing with a past trauma
How do you move on? Is this idea, “moving on”, even possible? Writer, director, and actor Eva Victor explores this nebulous concept in Sorry, Baby, a film that begins as a portrait of close university friendship and turns into an exploration of trauma’s aftermath and the past’s inescapable presence. Told through vignettes titled by the year of the events contained therein, Agnes (Victor) and Lydie (Naomie Ackie) move from present to past to future along separate but intertwined paths.
Many films employ flashbacks and non-narrative storytelling, but Sorry, Baby’s closest relative may be the stage musical Merrily We Roll Along, with its friendship reunions hiding years of disappointments and traumas in a shared history that the audience uncovers piecemeal; only in its final minutes does the whole story become clear.
Sorry, Baby is not quite as inventive as Sondheim’s reappraised masterpiece, showing its hand too early and circling back to its ending-stroke-beginning in an attempt to find closure when, as discussed throughout the course of its narrative, closure is revealed to be an unattainable myth. But like Merrily..., Victor’s film asks its audience to celebrate early innocence on its own terms, without cynically tossing it aside knowing that experience will dim those lights and create unimagined futures. And while working in the medium of film rather than stage, Victor’s camera knows the power of still, composed images to capture the ominous, unforgiving passage of time.
Some characters and scenarios feel canned, causing obstacles and further pain for its own sake rather than in a way that feels truthful to the scenario. But aside from these minor quibbles, the performances are so honest and the film's treatment of sexual assault and its aftermath so rigorous yet non-exploitative that Sorry, Baby is well worth a look.
Victor’s understated performance captures Agnes’ mischief and pride underneath the wide-eyed impulsiveness and desperation as she feels her life spiralling out of control. Ackie, a scene-stealer as always, is a luminous presence as Lydie; her concern for Anges’ well-being is always just under the surface in her eyes and half-finished sentences, the first hints in the film that something too bad to speak openly about has happened in their pasts – and it is not just their shared history in academia.
The supporting cast is strong. Louis Cancelmi is so ordinary and affable as a professor whose red flags are glaringly obvious. Lucas Hedges is particularly effective as Agnes’ neighbour Gavin, bringing a goofy earnestness that sweetly balances the story’s darkness. A late cameo from John Carroll Lynch turns into one of the film’s best scenes. Only Kelly McCormack’s jealous doctoral candidate feels like a misstep in writing.
Sorry, Baby never quite realises its potential but is nonetheless a poignant exploration of far-too-common traumas, acted in surprising and beautiful ways by a cast who clearly trust the material and each other. Victor’s vision promises greatness in storytelling with her next projects (hopefully many), and her ability to direct actors whilst melding seamlessly into the picture herself is remarkable among multi-hyphenates.
Sorry, Baby has its UK premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival, 14 & 15 Aug, and is released in UK cinemas on 22 Aug via Picturehouse