In Eva Victor's kind, cheeky, painful, magnificent film Sorry, Baby we meet Agnes
a few years after something "bad" has happened, as she's now a young professor at her alma mater. Talk of a former male advisor gives us an idea of what the bad thing that happened might have been, and eventually we're proven correct in our assumption, as we jump around in time learning about the event and how it affected Agnes in the few years after.
The "bad thing" is, abhorrently, nothing new, as many, many women could tell a similar story, and we see the callous way some people treat Agnes, and we shake our heads not because we're surprised, but because we're not surprised at all. But we also see just how complex Agnes's feelings are about what happened— she's sad and hurt and confused and angry, yes, but she also doesn't seem to want retribution. As she says at one point, she doesn't want the man to go to jail, she just wants him to stop being the kind of person who does what he did.
But even as difficult as this all is for Agnes, we also see that she doesn't live in a cynical, wholly traumatic world. Her best friend is exceptionally supportive, her neighbor is goofy but caring, and even one magnificent scene involving a man she meets in a chance encounter extends grace and humanity where we might not expect it. All of which is to say this isn't an entirely cruel place we live, there is goodness peeking through if we'll see it.
Victor observes Agnes's behavior in the aftermath of the bad thing with wide open eyes and with an understanding of the strangeness of people, their reactions to things, and the situations we can find ourselves in. We can see the deep meaning, and pain, found in the paper on which Agnes has printed her thesis and the small things around her that would not even register to anyone else but that set off waves of emotion for the woman. But Victor also has a light enough touch with all of this that it never feels oppressive for us, not that I could blame her if it did. Sorry, Baby is unquestionably one of the best movies of the year, and uncommonly generous in its treatment of an exceptionally difficult experience.
Sorry, Baby is in theaters.
