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‘Sorry, Baby’ Review: Eva Victor Wrote, Directed and Stars in What’s Sure to Be One of the Year’s Most Talked About Debuts
Produced by Barry Jenkins, Eva Victor's understated Sundance drama takes a nuanced look at the impact of a traumatic incident on a young grad student.
Her observant, unconventional script isn’t so much nonlinear as elliptical, opening in the present and then jumping backward to “The Year With the Bad Thing” to show Agnes before the incident, when her smiles were more natural and her happiness wasn’t mostly a performance intended to make others feel comfortable. Victor also includes scenes of a kind, nonthreatening male neighbor (a role that seems perfectly suited to Lukas Hedges’ uniquely sensitive energy), which suggest that not all men are problematic, while showing just how difficult it is for Agnes to reestablish intimacy. At the risk of setting expectations too high, “Sorry, Baby” (a 2025 Sundance premiere produced by “Moonlight” director Barry Jenkins and his partners at Pastel) feels like “Manchester by the Sea” in ways, from its Northeastern sense of place to the underlying notion of a life derailed, where the act of moving forward is more important than the setback itself.
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