Sorry, Baby - A Film Review and Discussion
CONTENT WARNING: mentions of sexual assault/rape, mentions of suicide
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SPOILER WARNING
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As a storyteller, it is not only literature that has captured my interest. Films, with their visual unfolding of a story and written foundation, are just as worthy of my attention and analyzing mind as a good boom, in my opinion. And so, that being said, I recently watched a movie that affected me deeply, more so than any film has in quite a while.
Sorry, Baby, a movie released by A24 in 2025, is a story of trauma, resilience, and the reality of non-linear healing after a Bad Thing happens. Written, directed by, and starring Eva Victor, the movie follows a young literature student Agnes, who is struggling to move on after a traumatic event she refers to as “ The Bad Thing”.
Agnes is a PHD student. When it comes time to present her thesis to Preston Decker, her mentor and a literature professor at the university she attends, Professor Decker has scheduling conflicts. Eventually, Agnes finds herself meeting with her mentor at his own home to discuss her thesis.
He is impressed, calling her and her thesis extraordinary. In the film, we watch as she enters his home. The camera, instead of following her inside, stays fixed on the front of the house for an eerily long amount of time, and we watch as the light shifts and day turns to evening, to night. Finally, Agnes appears at the door, disgruntled and pulling on her boots hastily. The silhouette of the professor looms ominous and still in the doorway behind her, and all is silent as she sits on the stairs and yanks her boots on all the way.
The camera follows a silent and stunned Agnes as she trudges through a dark pathway to her car. A man calls out that her shoes are untied. She does not reply. We watch as she drives in silence back to the home she shares with other students, and enters to see her best friend Lydie bent over her own unfinished thesis.
The scene is haunting. A stunned Agnes stands motionless in the doorway as Lydie begins to realize she isn’t okay. She questions Agnes, and all she replies to the inquiry is, “I don’t know…my pants are broken.”
The drop of Lydie’s stomach at her best friend’s words is felt by all. The silence, the look on the women’s faces, and the knowledge of the scenes that came before is haunting. It’s a feeling that I think all women, or at least the ones I know, are familiar with. A quiet sinking and the heaviness of the realization that they or another woman they know are now a part of a statistic.
In the scenes following, the audience watches Agnes process and heal from what she went through over multiple years. We watch as her best friend moves away and gets pregnant, the other students move out, and Agnes even gets promoted, filling none other than Professor Decker’s position, since he fled from the University the day after the assault took place.
And through all of it, Agnes stays put in the house she used to share with the others. She goes to work and goes home, living a solitary life. Lydie expresses concern for her when she comes to visit, but Agnes stands her ground, defending her lifestyle gently.
The film ends in an unexpected and tear-jerking scene. Lydie and her partner visit with their new baby, whom Agnes is wary of, as she does not have plans to be a parent. She is left to care for the baby while her friends go on a short date, and when she holds Jane in her arms, Agnes visibly softens. Her love for her best friend’s child shows regardless of her general unease around infants, and in the final scene of the movie she delivers a heartwarming, gentle, realistic monologue to the child in her arms.
She promises that she will always be there to talk, to listen, and to protect Jane. She says matter -of-factly, “if you ever want to kill yourself, just tell me. I won’t get scared.”
Agnes’ matter-of-fact tone is comforting in a way that I think all lot of women could understand. Her character, throughout the entire story, is the embodiment of “pushing through”. Her attitude after the assault is relatable because of the addition it becomes to her character. Before the rape, she was Agnes, a literature student with a best friend and aspirations. After, she was Agnes all the same, but she was Agnes after the assault. The film treats the event as a catalyst in such a subtle, realistic way. The silence of the drive home from the professors house, the look of realization on Lydie’s face, the quiet, wet moment of retelling the story in the bath tub with a distant look in her eye; it’s all so unsettling because of how little it disrupts the world around her.
The world is quiet. A man tells Agnes her shoes are untied while she walks back to her car. That small line from an insignificant side character speaks volumes to the feelings women experience so often. Agnes is carrying a new weight, and her life is changed, but the world goes on, and an unknowing stranger alerts her of the most mundane thing, proving to her that she is different now, and she is the only one who notices. The subtle unchanged-ness of the world around Agnes is louder than the assault itself in the film, and that is what I feel truly resonated with me.
I would also like to point out that while it is obvious that a rape occurred, the audience is not subjected to a graphic scene of assault. While I could go on a tangent about how this shows a difference in the handling of topics like violence against women by women versus men, it is quite a popular topic and I would rather focus on the effect the choice had on the story telling.
While the assault happens, all we see is the passage of time painted in sunlight and shadow across the front of the professor’s house. The scene is not short, and stretches out for an uncomfortably long time in silence. I felt that the implication of violence was so much stronger than witnessing it, and seeing Agnes, disheveled and visibly unsettled as she stumbled from the building, was more fear-inducing than watching yet another rape scene on television.
Yet again, I am drawn to speak on the way the film uses silence. The quiet of these scenes allows for the audience to sit and fester in the knowledge of what is happening, with only their feelings and thoughts to ruminate on as they wait breathlessly for the scene to end. Not only does this artistic choice allow for more impactful story telling, but it shows the uncomfortable truth of traumatic events: the world goes on. So many things could change a person’s life, affect them deeply, and yet, the film explores the aftermath of healing. The simple things that no one thinks about.
Sorry, Baby is a film about trauma, healing, and resilience. I laughed, I cried, and I truly enjoyed this movie. I recommend that you read the synopsis before watching it yourself, but I encourage you to see it if you can!
