It’s incredibly difficult to write a successful comedy film. Most times, jokes can be out of touch or rely too much on slapstick to effectively tell a story. Other times, they’re just flat out not funny. That can kill a comedy outright. So making one that works is no easy task. And when you combine it with a subject matter most often left for dramatic works, it becomes twice as hard. That’s what makes Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby so successful – it blends together the humor with the drama to create a film that feels real while also being incredibly funny.
Victor’s directorial debut tells the story of Agnes, a college grad now teaching at the same school. She spends time with her friends and gets through life with people around her, but from the opening moments you can recognize something isn’t right. Yes, she seems normal on the surface and delights in a visit from her best friend Lydie (Naomie Ackie). But as the film unfolds, you come to find out that she was the victim of a sexual assault by her own college professor, and you are able to see how Agnes deals with that in an incredibly real, grounded way.
Victor, who also wrote and stars as Agnes, used her background in comedy to craft a film that is genuine and aptly touches on difficult subjects, but also shows that humor can help to heal wounds. From the opening scene there are great comedic bits that almost entirely rely on witty dialogue and not slapstick, over the top scenarios.
Jokes are instead found through awkward dinners, messy doctor encounters and interactions between best friends. It works incredibly well and doesn’t detract from the message of the film either.
But what Victor does exceedingly well for a film touching on difficult subject matter is she never makes the victim the punchline. She instead ensures the comedy is all around Agnes. There’s a particularly great scene in a courtroom that oozes awkward energy and focuses on Agnes and yet she’s never made into a joke. It’s quite impressive and, as the film delves deeper into the dramatic, more serious tones, makes you realize the human nature of it all and empathize with Agnes as a normal person.
But Sorry, Baby isn’t just a balance of comedic beats and dramatic moments. There are also plenty of tender scenes between friends that highlight the relationships of the film well and provide a nice balance for the film. At times, the comedy can take over and be a little too prevalent but never distracting.
It’s also those dramatic and tender beats that allow Victor and cinematographer Mia Cioffi Henry to flex their filmmaking muscles. There’s an especially excellent sequence in the middle of the film of three consecutive one takes that blew me away as I was watching. Sorry, Baby was also shot almost entirely on location in Ipswich, Massachusetts and there’s a small town vibe that really helps enhance the film. There’s isolated cabins in the woods, quiet neighborhood streets and small town eateries that give off an atmosphere of home for the characters. Had it been shot on a studio lot, you wouldn’t get anywhere close to that same feeling.
Final Thoughts
Sorry, Baby is an impressive debut for Eva Victor. It’s smart, funny, dramatic, heartbreaking and tender. There are signs of inexperience and an occasional over-reliance on comedy to advance moments of the story, but that doesn’t detract from the experience at all. It’s engaging and fun in the face of trauma and by the end of the film, I was left feeling hopeful for the characters. Even if the film doesn’t have the traditional “see this character is all healed” trope that some films in this genre use. I am quite excited to see what Victor decides to do next, because this one was really special.
4/5
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I have been watching movies my whole life and fell in love at an early age. I was entranced by the ability for a film to whisk me away to a different universe, and that really started with the Star Wars Franchise. I'm by no means an expert and can roll with opinions that might be controversial, but that's the beauty of a film; we can all see the same thing on screen, but each of us may come away with a different interpretation of what we saw. When I'm not watching movies, I work in Marketing with my degree from Western New England University.
MY FAVORITE MOVIES: Good Will Hunting, Star Wars: A New Hope (or the whole saga), All The President's Men, Before Sunrise, Ocean's 11, In The Mood For Love and so many more...