By Jason Osiason

Wondrous, wondrous cinema. Eva Victor is a triple force: she wrote, directed, and starred in Sorry, Baby, a film that doesn’t just depict trauma, but makes you feel every jagged edge of its aftermath. She broke my heart into pieces. A film that makes you hold your hand to your chest and weep, not because it demands your tears, but because it speaks to something so painfully real.

Agnes, an English professor at a small New England college, is trying to move forward after being sexually assaulted by her graduate advisor. That’s what she tells herself, anyway. She teaches her classes, meets up with friends, forces herself to laugh at the right moments. But something is wrong. There’s a heaviness in her breath, in her posture, in the way she hesitates before walking into a room. The film never reduces her to victimhood—it does something far more complex. It lets us sit with her in the unbearable space between what happened and how she exists in the world now.

Victor’s writing is shattering in its honesty, never manipulative, never reaching for easy catharsis. The narrative moves like memory; fluid, out of order, slipping between moments that feel too small to matter until they suddenly do. Every detail is calibrated so precisely, every interaction layered with the weight of what goes unsaid.

But for all its sorrow, Sorry, Baby is never suffocating. That’s what makes it masterful. It understands that pain doesn’t exist in a vacuum, there’s humor, there’s longing, there’s the desperate need to be understood. It reckons with the reality of being seen, of feeling yourself morph into a narrative that doesn’t belong to you, of wanting to claw your way back to something resembling normalcy. It is devastating, yes, but it is also filled with moments of connection so deeply human they almost feel unreal.

The supporting cast moves through Agnes’ world like ripples in water, touching her life in ways both fleeting and profound. Naomi Ackie is stunning as Lydie, her best friend, whose unwavering support is sometimes messy, sometimes imperfect, but always real. Lucas Hedges plays Gavin, the well-meaning but awkward neighbor who hovers at the edges, trying to offer something like friendship, comfort, a distraction without overstepping. Even the smallest characters feel real, like they exist outside of Agnes’ story, which only makes it more heartbreaking. And looming in the background, whether named or not, is Professor Decker, the weight of his presence felt in Agnes’ silences and guarded movements. The world keeps turning, even when it feels like it shouldn’t. [A+]