Jackson Bragman, Staff Writer
Francis Ford Coppola once said, “Good acting and writing are the oxygen and hydrogen of cinema. If you don’t have either of them, it will be impossible to have a good movie. And if you have both of them, then other weaknesses will be almost irrelevant.”
If you subscribe to this theory, it’s more than possible that Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby” was the most refreshing swig of H2O you slurped down at the movies in 2025.
Victor’s directorial debut was made for only $1.5 million. It’s not only the lowest budget film on my list, but also the lowest budget film I saw all year. But what it lacks in special effects and grandiose set pieces, it more than makes up for in its screenplay and performances.
“Sorry, Baby” follows Agnes (played by Victor), a newly tenured professor at the fictional Fairport University—the school she attended as a graduate student some years prior. She still lives in the house she shared with her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie) during grad school, but is now accompanied exclusively by her pet cat Olga.
A “bad thing” happened to Agnes during school, which we come to find out was a sexual assault at the hands of her professor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), who she previously held a deep reverence for. The film bounces around in time to explore the lasting effects this has on Agnes.
Tonally, “Sorry, Baby” strikes an incredible balance of gravity and levity. I want to be very cautious about using “lighthearted” to describe this film. It’s dealing with extremely serious subject material, but does so in a way that feels inviting and brilliantly funny.
The film is littered with moments of sharp dialogue—driven by a perfectly understated Victor performance—that highlight a lack of systemic support and empathy for sexual assault victims, through a black comedy lens.
The day after the incident, Lydie takes Agnes to the emergency room where they meet with a less than compassionate doctor who, quite matter-of-factly, works through his questionnaire. He asks Agnes if she’s showered since the assault and she replies that she took a bath the night before.
“So it’s usually best to go to the emergency room right after something like this happens,” the doctor says, almost scolding Agnes.
“Oh, OK, I will definitely keep that in mind for the next time,” she replies.
We’re also introduced to Gavin (Lucas Hedges—who might be the new king of cringe comedy after this performance), Agnes’s neighbor with an abundance of Good Boy energy. His character acts as a crucial gateway for Agnes to begin to trust people again and rediscover her sexuality, and he just so happens to absolutely crush every scene he’s in.
What’s ultimately so striking about this film is its realness. At one point Agnes clarifies that she doesn’t view Decker as her “attacker” when describing what happened. “It wasn’t like, BAH!” she says. This is a crucial distinction.
In recent years, we’ve heard so many eccentric stories of sexual misconduct in celebrity culture, but the reality is that the overwhelming majority of sexual assault cases go a lot like the one in this film. One in which the victim knows and trusts the perpetrator. A big part of Agnes’s struggle is her confusion. She looked up to Decker, who abused that admiration.
Perhaps my favorite thing about this film is its title. There’s nothing I love more than a well crafted movie title; one that’s appropriate, but not obvious, and creative, but not pretentious. So why is this one “Sorry, Baby”?
One interpretation could be how Victor feels other people are treating Agnes in the aftermath of her assault. When she reports the incident to the Title IX folks at Fairport, she’s shut down and told that, while they’re taking the issue “really seriously,” there’s nothing they can do since Decker no longer works for the university. There’s a patronizing manner in the way everyone around Agnes seems to say, “Sorry, baby. We know this happened to you, but there’s nothing we can do.”
The other, more obvious, interpretation regards the monologue in the film’s final scene from Agnes to Lydie’s newborn baby girl. A baby, completely innocent and unaware of the cruelty of the real world, who’s reassured that when she does become aware, she at least has something of a silver lining.
“I’m sorry that bad things are gonna happen to you,” says Agnes. “I hope they don’t. If I can ever stop something from being bad, let me know, but sometimes bad stuff just happens. But I can still listen, and not be scared. So that’s good. Or that’s something at least.”
Everyone will have their own interpretation, and that’s wonderful, but I’m gonna go ahead and give Victor credit for both of these and call it a double entendre. She certainly deserves the benefit of the doubt as the newest member of an exciting young crop of auteurs that I look forward to watching flourish for many years to come.
Jackson Bragman ‘27 is a journalism and cinema double major from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.