{"id":47879,"date":"2025-05-24T23:00:37","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T03:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=47879"},"modified":"2025-07-07T14:08:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T18:08:04","slug":"sorry-baby-siff2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/05\/24\/sorry-baby-siff2025\/","title":{"rendered":"SORRY BABY [SIFF2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A woman\u2019s life leading up to and after a trauma is explored in a non-linear telling of Eva Victor\u2019s thoughtful, sad, yet honestly funny debut feature, Sorry Baby, the closing film of the 51st Seattle International Film Festival.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Agnes is visited by her former roommate Lyndie, bringing the past to the present as Sorry, Baby moves forward and backward in time, exploring the lead-up and emotional results of a sexual assault and how it unseats her life in the beautiful, poignant, and mature depth of Sorry, Baby. Produced by Moonlight’s Barry Jenkins, Sorry, Baby is an incredible debut from the viral comedy and Billions star Eva Victor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry, Baby is an incredible film. Eva Victor\u2019s script is one of the strongest of the year, with incredible tact, natural humor, perfectly realized characters, and just an overall revelation of a writer, director, and performer in Victor as Agnes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry, Baby is a film about trauma, but not ABOUT trauma. So we\u2019re all on the same page, Agnes is raped by her advisor at grad school. I understand if sexual assault can be a trigger, but Victor handles it with amazing tact, with a single held shot of a still location: she trusts the audience to know what\u2019s going on without explicit detail. Victor puts an amazing trust in the audience across the feature, deftly avoiding cliche and melodrama, instead finding a focused, grounded honesty in her characters and their words and actions.\u00a0 She allows the viewer to infer feelings, processes, and truths, but when Victor chooses to matter-of-factly state things directly, it lends an immense power.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We all process trauma in our particular ways. Sometimes it takes years to process. Agnes doesn\u2019t have the heartwrenching tear down of big emotion, but mutes it in her way, especially after those who could do something about it, the school, a doctor, etc, essentially shrug off. How she processes is different than normally seen in narratives, but one that is totally and completely hers. As a person, she\u2019s a subdued and a little off-kilter before the event, with an odd sense of humor and not quite connecting to others; post-event, she remains on the same path. If anything, it sticks her (as it often does for other survivors of events) in time, as highlighted in the growing and shifting life of best friend Lyndie, Naomi Ackie in a fantastic supporting performance, or Victor\u2019s choice in how the narrative unfolds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry Baby uses a non-linear narrative, following into chapters such as \u201cThe Year of the Very Bad Thing\u201d and \u201cThe Year of the Really Good Sandwich\u201d. Flowing forward and back in time, this method deepens and builds, not a gimmick but strength. In many ways, Sorry Baby functions as a series of interconnected vignettes, all revolving around Agnes’s processing. But it\u2019s also about how we connect, or don\u2019t, with others. What we open up, and what we keep in, and the unexpected moments of clarity and release.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Across the film, it\u2019s one powerful scene after another. The final run of three extended sequences is a force. One, with favorite character actor John Carrol Lynch and a sandwich, is one of the best scenes of the year; full stop; perfectly written and acted. But it\u2019s very funny in its own, strange way, not unlike Agnes. There is a strong wit in the script, the sort of humor that comes from true interactions of people. Sometimes awkward (the meetings with fellow kilter neighbor Lucas Hedges, never better, are beautiful comedies. Hot dogs, anyone?), sometimes surprisingly honest, else veiled with layers of history and what is not said. It\u2019s vast and often heartbreaking, but earned with every emotional beat.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry, Baby is one of the year\u2019s best, and a top tier for the Seattle International Film Festival. Eva Victor\u2019s script is one of pointed restraint, an honest and grounded method of exploring a tough subject. With her own performance at the center, she is surrounded by a bevy of amazing supporting performances. Heart-tearing but not melodramatic, filled with all the sadness, humor, and frustration of truth, Sorry, Baby should be sought out.<\/span><\/p>\n

Sorry, Baby is presented through the Seattle International Film Festival, running in-person screenings May 15th \u2013 25th and selected online screenings March 26th \u2013 June 1st. See <\/b>Siff.net\/festival<\/b><\/a>\u00a0for more.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A woman\u2019s life leading up to and after a trauma is explored in a non-linear telling of Eva Victor\u2019s thoughtful, sad, yet honestly funny debut feature, Sorry Baby, the closing film of the 51st Seattle International Film Festival.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1284],"tags":[302,356,3700],"class_list":["post-47879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-festivalsevents","tag-drama","tag-film-festival","tag-siff2025"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47879"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48553,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47879\/revisions\/48553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}