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‘Sorry, Baby' Filmmaker and Star Eva Victor Can Do It All — Make You Laugh, Make You Cry, and Keep the Cat Alive
Two weeks before the limited release of Eva Victor's feature directorial debut, 'Sorry, Baby,' the multi-hyphenate was busy with some off-beat grassroots marketing: assuring Instagram followers that the film's feline supporting star, who appears in much of the Sundance hit's marketing, was OK. More than OK! 'I keep having to do them,' Victor told IndieWire during a recent interview about those homegrown PSAs. 'Someone told me that their friends aren't going to see it because they're worried the cat dies. And I was like, OK, so, something must be done. I'm continually trying to remind people, but I don't know if it'll work out. But I hope the word will get around eventually that it's not that kind of movie. [And it's not just] 'the cat doesn't die.' I want it to be 'the cat lives a wonderful life and nothing bad ever happens to the cat.' You know what I mean? Because that's different.' More from IndieWire SCAD Takes Cannes: IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 'The Eva Victor Grad Program': Inside the Year-and-a-Half the Director Spent Preparing to Make 'Sorry, Baby' That's the sort of care and attention that Victor — who wrote, directed, and stars in the film — lavishes on everything they do (Victor uses she/they pronouns). And it's that exact sort of sensitivity that runs through every minute of 'Sorry, Baby,' which premiered to great acclaim at this year's Sundance Film Festival, where it also picked up distribution from A24 and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for Victor. Victor's debut is a darkly funny and enormously tender film that is about what happens after the worst happens, but with plenty of room to weave the light next to the dark. As the film's logline hints, 'something bad' happens to Victor's Agnes, but the creator and star is wise enough to understand that's only part of the story, because that's only part of life itself. Told in non-linear chapters, the film follows Agnes as she deals with said awful life event, all of it set in the small New England town where she attended grad school and is now a professor. While 'Sorry, Baby' might be rooted specifically in Agnes' story and the bad thing at its center, in its specificity, there's still tremendous room for wider recognition and revelation. Plus: cute cat. So, yes, the cat (named Olga in the film, as played by Noochie the cat) is just fine, more than fine. Other animals? Well, there is a key scene in the film involving a mouse who doesn't fare quite as well, though that's all treated with the same blend of kindness and dark humor that sets the film apart. Victor is incredibly easy to talk to, and on a wide array of subjects, so chatting about Olga soon led to talking about their own cat (Clyde) and this writer's pair of tuxedos (Felix and Oscar) and their various adventures with in-house vermin (mostly bad). Then, of course, came this exchange, which feels as if it could have been pulled directly out of 'Sorry, Baby': Kate Erbland: I got a hamster when I was Victor: Bad? And while 'bad' doesn't even begin to cover it (anyone who has ever owned a hamster can see where this is going, and that's before I mention that my hamster came to me pregnant), the quickness with which Victor can read emotion, respond to it, and do it in such a way that you feel like instant confidants, well, that's probably why 'Sorry, Baby' is such a revelation. Cats, mice, hamsters, oh my! aside, how is Victor feeling now, on the cusp of the film being released? 'I'm feeling good. And weird. But I feel really excited for the movie to come out and have real people see it,' they said, speaking in the same clipped manner as Agnes. 'It's been so amazing that film people see it, but it's also a movie I made for a version of myself that didn't know much about film and just wanted to feel a film. That's sort of who the film's for. It just feels like kind of this pent-up thing, but I'm ready to release. It's funny it's called a release. It's mirroring so much about birth in a way that I'm surprised by.' Victor is quite thoughtful on the subject of who the film is 'for.' 'Whenever you're in a finance meeting, people love to talk about 'target audience,' and I'm like, 'Honestly, I think for a film like this, it's actually so much based on your lived experience,'' they said. 'I remember all the financiers were like, 'It's young women!' and I'm like, 'Maybe?' I don't know, but I'm excited to figure out who ends up seeing it and who finds it.' Taking the film around to other festivals and screenings has been instructive, and Victor has spent the weeks and months since that Sundance premiere getting a sense of who will find the film. Who needs the film. 'Once in a while, I'll do a Q&A after a screening, and then there are people who I meet, people who are feeling connected to it,' Victor said. 'It's not always the people I expect, based on how they look or something, but I really like that.' They noted that producer and Pastel principal Adele Romanski has a 'finance bro friend' who is 'obsessed' with the movie. 'I feel like the more time I spend in gender-fluid mentality, the more I'm like, 'Everyone's just fucking figuring it out.' I think people are surprising. People can surprise you with what hits for them,' Victor said. Victor talks about film in a very visceral, physical way. Films can hit you. They can move you. They can lodge in you. 'The way I keep thinking about movies right now, it's like there are some films that come in as you're watching them and then move through you and leave. They leave your body. And then there's some films that lodge themselves into your body and soul,' Victor said. 'Because the movie is so personal, I can't really tell [which one it is]. It's up to each person, whether it lodges or whether it moves.' Victor has been open about the very personal nature of her film, and that Agnes' experiences are inspired by things that happened in her own life. In the early days of lockdown, Victor did what many people did — got super into watching movies — and while they'd already been performing by that point (stand-up, incredibly hilarious social media bits), their interest in movies took a different cast. She started looking for stories that appealed to her own lived experiences, and that desire to see those experiences and stories and emotions eventually led to Victor writing the film's screenplay. 'When I was writing it was like, 'Can this [even] be a script?,'' they said. 'And then I started to understand how movies are not a script. One part of what the film will be exists in the script, and the rest is visual, and you can try to write towards it, but it's a completely different medium. That part I actually found a lot of joy in.' The kind of films that inspired Victor — they named some 'really intense' titles like 'Three Colors: Blue,' 'The Double Life of Veronique,' and 'The Piano Teacher' — were more about the feelings they wanted to convey. 'It started becoming clear that this is what the movie looks like and this is what the movie feels like in different moments,' Victor said. Victor said there are two distinct moments in the script where all of that blended together during the writing process — how it would look versus how it would feel, and what visuals were needed to bridge that — including the opening shot of the film and a key moment that happens in the film's second chapter, 'The Year with the Bad Thing.' Both moments focus on a building: the opening shot is of Agnes' small country house, the other scene is of her professor's (Louis Cancelmi) rowhouse over the course of a few hours. 'Those were two moments where I was like, 'This is very clear to me, the filmmaking in this is very simple and clear to me,'' Victor said. 'And they're sort of driving moments of the film visually that allowed me to see it as a movie and that it needs to be a movie. I think the screenplay part, I felt pretty comfortable, I felt like I understood what the screenplay was, and it was really about translating it into a film. That was the part that I was like, 'Oh, my God.' But, also, if you have a screenplay, it is in there. You just have to figure out exactly what you mean.' Starring in the film? That was an easier ask for Victor. Directing it? OK, a bit more fraught. 'I knew I wanted to act in it because I wrote it for myself ultimately, honestly,' they said. 'I was like, 'Maybe we should find someone else to direct it, because that seems like a lot,' and I thought about it for a little bit and I was like, 'Wait, this feels weird.' My producers were like, 'Go think about it, let it crystallize.'' I took a couple months and then I think I wrote back an email that the subject was like, 'Crystallizing Happening' or something.' Those producers include the team at Pastel, including fellow filmmaker Barry Jenkins, Adele Romanski, and Mark Ceryak. Pastel came on early to the project, and were instrumental to Victor in many ways, including getting Victor to the point where directing felt possible. 'It took me a little bit. Then I was like, 'I do want to direct it, and these are the places where I feel very insecure about that,'' Victor said. 'They sort of set me up on a journey. We collaborated on a journey of getting me to feel comfortable directing. Which, I don't know if I've ever felt comfortable directing, but I got to a place where there was no more learning to be done not on the job.' Romanski and co-producer and Pastel exec Catalina Rojter were often on the film's Massachusetts set, Victor said, joined by Jenkins when his schedule allowed. (Victor said the pair really bonded during the editing of the film, when Victor was editing 'Sorry, Baby' at the same post-production facility as Jenkins' 'The Lion King: Mufasa.' 'We edited in the same place as 'Lion King,' but they built a wall so that we couldn't see what they were making, because it was very private,' Victor said with a wry smile. 'Like, one time I saw one image of an owl, and I was like, 'Fuck, I'm going to get fired.' And then I was like, 'Fuck, that looks good.'') To prepare for their first day on set, Victor also turned to other filmmakers for some advice. Jane Schoenbrun offered some that really stuck, speaking to both the pragmatism and emotion Victor wanted to bring to the production. 'At that point, I was just ready,' Victor said. 'I was really nervous though, too, because I was trying to set tone in all these ways before [we even started]. I remember Jane told me this thing while they were shooting 'I Saw TV Glow,' and they were like, 'The most important thing about the first day is making the day.' So, you have to finish on time, because morale needs it, and people need to trust that you know how to do that. That was a lesson that I took with me. I was like, 'We're finishing the day on time.'' The first shot? A little trickier, as it involved Victor as Agnes and Naomi Ackie as her devoted best friend Lydie going for a walk near Agnes' house (which also used to be Lydie's house). 'There was a train that went by every 20 minutes under the tunnel we were walking over, and I really wanted to wait for the train,' Victor said. 'And Adele was like, 'That's crazy. This is the first shot of the day.' And I was like, 'Ah, man, I don't know if I should wait for the train,' and then I turned to Naomi, and I was like, 'Should we wait for it?' And Naomi was like, 'Whatever you want. Do whatever you want. I'm here.'' In some ways, that's Agnes and Lydie's relationship in a nutshell, one borne of love, trust, and confidence. If Lydie is Agnes' person, it sure sounds like Ackie filled that same role for Victor. 'I really think the reason that the shoot worked was because Naomi had so much trust in me from the beginning, without having any proof I could do it,' Victor said. 'There were moments when I had to think about what I wanted, and the patience that she gave me and the love that she gave me was completely essential for me to then become more confident. That's such a gift from day one for her to trust me without having any reason to, really.' The last day of production focused on scenes with Victor and co-star Lucas Hedges, including a handful of more intimate moments between Victor and Hedges. No spoilers here, but Victor said Hedges' last shot sees his Gavin running out of his house toward Victor's Agnes, and Victor's last shot was the converse, with Agnes running toward him. That's a sweet enough note to end it on, but Victor, as ever, had a slew of hilarious details that only added to its power and humor. 'Our Steadicam operator, Dean, was recovering from Norovirus that he got from his kids,' Victor said. 'I kept running in the wrong direction, because I was running toward the house, because my intuition was telling me that, but I really had to run toward these lights. I kept running the wrong way, and he just kept chugging Gatorade and I felt so bad. Then it started snowing. The whole reason I wanted to shoot there and then was because I wanted to get fucking snow in the movie, and it snowed the weekend before we shot, and it snowed the night we were wrapping, and we actually had to wait for it to stop snowing because the shots wouldn't match. So, snow didn't happen! But I heard that happened to 'Certain Women,' too, which is a really important movie for this film. I'm in good company.' What did it feel like to wrap production? 'It was fun, but it was weird,' Victor said. 'There's a grief to it. When you're imagining your film, it's endless, and the reason it's hard is that it doesn't exist yet, but it's everything. By the end of the shoot, there's this sadness of, it's finite, what you have is what you have. But then it's also euphoric, because you have it.' Victor laughed. 'And I had never done an edit before, so we wrapped and I was like, 'We did it! It's over!,'' they said. 'And it's like, hell no. I was humbled quick. I went to LA the next week to start editing. I had one week off where I was in my parents' house, comatose. It was an intense time. It was amazing. I miss it. The further I get from it, the more I crave it. I really do miss the part where we were making something.' There's little question that making the film was intensely personal and deeply healing for Victor, but they also understand that by saying the film is based on their own experiences or events in their life, that opens a door for people to pry. 'I'm incredibly interested in privacy,' they said. 'It's something I've had for a long time. When I was doing stand-up, I had all these boundaries around what I would say. I think it made me a pretty bad stand-up, because I was like, 'I don't want to talk about anything about my relationships.' That's one of the most interesting things people could talk about!' But 'Sorry, Baby' is, Victor stressed, a fictional narrative film. 'I know, [there's] a lot of curiosity,' Victor said. 'It's obviously a personal film, but I did have a lot of joy in the creation of world-building and in the fictional parts. It was kind of the best of both worlds, where I got to weave in my little truths in ways that are disguised enough in this world that I got to build to support this person's story. Real life is real life, but a movie has to be contained, because it only lasts a certain amount of time and the world has to support the story.' Victor added, 'People's interest in my experience, I'm trying to look at it pretty empathetically, that people feel connected to the film and are wanting for more information.' For those wanting more information, Victor points back to the film itself. 'I do think the film is the purest version of what I could ever say about me, and the film is also not me,' Victor said. 'The film is the film. The film is what we can all look at, and I'm just a part of it in my own ways. It is a piece of art. It's meant to be a piece of artistic creation. So, I do always feel it's appropriate to point people toward the film if they have questions about me.' As we were speaking in a tucked-away alcove on the second floor of the Cherry Lane Theatre (which A24 purchased in 2023), Ackie and Hedges were on stage doing remote video interviews. A monitor in the alcove featured a live feed, and we could see and hear the interviews as they unfolded. On one hand, so nice! On the other, so nerve-wracking! 'It's so nice to have Naomi and Lucas around me doing [press] with me, because I don't want it to just be my film,' the filmmaker said. 'I want it to feel like a film we all made, because we did. It's nice to remember that it's not just me.' As another remote video interview started up, Victor couldn't help but smile at the monitor. 'Aw, look at their cute little faces,' they said, just as the interviewer asked a question about Victor. 'It's so awkward. They're talking about me and I'm not here.' While we managed to turn the volume down, Victor couldn't help zeroing in on a slight framing problem, with Ackie and Hedges not quite evenly situated next to each other. 'It's freaking me out that they're not sitting in the middle,' Victor said, with a smile. 'But that's my problem. I'm the director.' A24 will release 'Sorry, Baby' in limited release on Friday, June 27, with a nationwide release to follow on Friday, July 18. Best of IndieWire The Best Lesbian Movies Ever Made, from 'D.E.B.S.' and 'Carol' to 'Bound' and 'Pariah' The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘The Eva Victor Grad Program': Inside the Year-and-a-Half the Director Spent Preparing to Make ‘Sorry, Baby'
Comedian and actor Eva Victor had previously been hired to write screenplays, but sitting down to write 'Sorry, Baby' during COVID lockdown was different. 'It was a little bit rebellious, it was the script that no one was asking me to write,' said Victor while a guest on this week's episode of the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. 'This is the movie I want to write if I die tomorrow. I just kind of needed to get this out [of me], and it was becoming more painful to not write it, than to write it.' It is very personal film, one that Victor (who uses she/they pronouns) long saw themselves also starring in, as the protagonist Agnes. But Victor feared that simultaneously starring in and directing their first feature film would compromise both roles. Conversely, initially entertaining the idea of bringing on another director brought clarity to the dilemma. More from IndieWire SCAD Takes Cannes: IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking 'The Cat in the Hat' Trailer: Bill Hader Gets Animated for Dr. Seuss Adaptation 'I realized that I desperately wanted to direct it. I just felt scared of not knowing [how], I never went to film school. My only time making stuff on my own had been videos with my iPhone,' Victor said. Victor's iPhone comedies built an online following, including director Barry Jenkins, whose Pastel Productions would produce 'Sorry, Baby.' One thing Jenkins saw in those internet videos — although Victor didn't at the time see it themselves — was that they were already demonstrating a strong directorial sensibility. Jenkins and his partners at Pastel, including Adele Romanski and Mark Ceryak, would become advisors to what they called 'The Eva Victor Grad Program,' which started with a question posed to Victor: What do you need to prepare to direct? 'I have an issue,' explained Victor. 'If someone asks me a question, I come back with like pages and pages of an answer.' The result is what universities might call a 'self-guided' course of study, which Victor walked us through while a guest on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. No course of study will give a director 'a vision' for a film, which is an essential ingredient. 'It was about slowing down and being like, 'Look, I know how I want this to look and feel. I need to surround myself with like geniuses to help me execute this and to help me understand why an image feels so important to me on a technical level, so that I understand what story we're telling and the vocabulary of the film,' said Victor. It would take time for Victor to learn the tools and process. And while unemployment is stressful, it supplied Victor a year-and-half of immersing themselves in the steps to get to the point they felt confident they could direct 'Sorry, Baby.' 'I would go look up the curriculum of a bunch of film schools,' said Victor. 'I would watch the films and I would read the books, [which] were these technical books.' There are so many facets to filmmaking, and filmmaking books can lead to falling down overly comprehensive rabbit holes. It's here, in retrospect, the self-guided nature of Victor's deep dive wasn't always the most productive use of time, as the scope of the discussion was beyond what they felt they needed to know. What became important from this process was understanding what tangible steps and exercises Victor would need to do next. Explained Victor, 'I read the books that I think make sense to read, and now obviously I need to do something different because this is very heady and it's a not impractical, but non-practical, it's not the action of doing something.' '[Reading filmmaking books] became, 'OK, now I know what a shot list is, how do you make a shot list? How do films that I love shot list?' So I analyzed films,' said Victor. 'I went through all of 'Certain Women' and took a screenshot of every setup, and [said], 'OK, so let me guess at [director] Kelly Reichardt's shot list.'' Victor realized there were limitations to reconstructing Reichardt's actual shot list, as aspects of the coverage were likely left on the editing room floor, but it became important to get inside the thought process behind the choices. 'It's an attempt at understanding the scope and the reasons why the camera is where it is, and how you can edit things together,' said Victor. Victor's transition from scene analysis to storyboarding was seamless, as analyzing films like 'Certain Women' 'quickly becomes, 'OK, that's how she did it,' explained Victor. 'But how am I going to do it?' 'Why does this coverage make sense for her story and what kind of coverage makes sense for my stories?' And that became storyboarding.' Victor spent five months storyboarding. It would prove to be one of her most valuable schooling steps. '[I] finally put to paper the images that had been lasting in my mind, so that I could show people the wide [shot] of the house at the beginning, and even just to show myself,' said Victor. 'It was almost like editing the film once, to see if I liked the edit.' One of the big visual challenges Victor would start working through was that 70 of the 84 scenes in 'Sorry, Baby' take place in a small New England cottage. Practical locations with tight interior spaces are often where low-budget independent films go to die, and Victor would need the cottage to visually express distinct phases of Agnes (Victor) and best friend Lydie's (Naomi Ackie) lives. Victor would have to prove to herself, but also make the case to her savvy producers, that she could pull off what could be a significant, self-imposed limitation. 'The cottage has to do a lot, and it has to go through a transformation on its own,' said Victor. 'I wanted the cottage to be able to exist on the spectrum of a warm cozy nest when Lydie is around, and then sort of this house of horrors when Agnes feels lonely.' 'Sorry, Baby' is a non-linear film, moving between the time Lydie and Agnes are grad student living together in the cottage, and then later when Agnes stays on to teach at their university. While Agnes is isolated and feeling stuck in the cottage, Lydie is off living her life in New York City and growing (discovering she's gay, falling in love, and having a baby). 'It's really about showing someone how time passes in the same places,' said Victor. 'A cottage in the woods is like a horror movie thing, and it's also a rom-com thing, so it's helpful to have our associations with images to then use them to tell Agnes' subjective experience of how this house transforms in different moments.' The five months of storyboarding was beneficial, but it triggered a new fear in Victor: How does set work as a director? 'I took five months to make storyboards, I don't have five months to make [the film], so I asked my friend Jane Schoenbrun to go to their set and shadow,' said Victor. The most valuable part of shadowing Schoenbrun, was watching them prep 'I Saw the TV Glow.' Victor acknowledged they are a very different filmmakers, but in a way that was for the best — seeing how Schoenbrun's distinct and clear vision was translated to the 'TV Glow' department heads was helpful. Prior to that, Victor did not understand what happened during pre-production, and was comforted that there were so many meetings where every aspect of the film was discussed in detail. By the end of the 'I Saw the TV Glow' shoot, Victor called the Pastel team with news: they were ready to direct 'Sorry, Baby.' An A24 release, 'Sorry, Baby' is now in limited theaters, with a nationwide release to follow on Friday, July 18. To hear Eva Victor's full interview, subscribe to the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform Best of IndieWire The Best Lesbian Movies Ever Made, from 'D.E.B.S.' and 'Carol' to 'Bound' and 'Pariah' The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme'
Boston Globe
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Sorry, Baby' takes an unapologetic look at dealing with trauma
There's also humor in Fran's somewhat reluctant reaction to leaving their baby with Agnes for a spell while Lydie shows her the small, New England college town where she and Agnes earned their Masters. You can see the 'does she know anything about handling a kid?' expression that briefly plays across Fran's face before Lydie signals her approval. After all, Agnes still has the cat she adopted as a kitten. Surely, she can handle a kid for a few hours. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Since Agnes is undecided on motherhood, this may be her one big chance to impart the wisdom she's accrued through a lifetime of trials and tribulations. Even if the kid has no idea what she's saying. Advertisement Agnes's monologue is a deceptively simple speech, and 'Sorry, Baby' is a deceptively simple movie. Told in chapters that highlight a specific year of events, the film drifts back and forth in time, capturing little moments that register long after you've left the theater. Writer-director Victor's dialogue-heavy script is full of conversations that occasionally border on the absurd, and can feel off-kilter, yet they're always rooted in human feelings. There are no grandiose moments here, only little ones that, cobbled together, create a moving and profound experience. Advertisement Naomi Ackie and Eva Victor in 'Sorry, Baby.' A24 'Sorry, Baby' walks a fine line between comedy and drama. There are funny moments, to be sure, but they lean toward a type of irreverent gallows humor that those of us affected by trauma often wield as a defense mechanism. Agnes has been through a traumatic event that the film repeatedly refers to as 'the bad thing,' but it's only hinted at in the film's first chapter. The second chapter walks us through the events leading up to 'the bad thing,' but Victor has no intention of turning their movie into trauma porn. We never see the sexual assault of Agnes by her graduate school advisor, Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi). Instead, Victor trains the camera on his house as Agnes enters, allowing the sky to denote the passage of time. The sequence that follows is a masterful bit of directing and acting that announces Victor as a cinematic triple threat. This is their debut feature, though you wouldn't know it based on how they handle this particular section of the film. After driving around in a real time trip that feels endless, Agnes tells Lydie what happened. Victor's performance captures the strange and misleading casual nonchalance that accompanies shock; Agnes's descriptions are matter-of-fact, as if she's left her body and is reporting on someone else's trauma. Naomi Ackie and Eva Victor in 'Sorry, Baby.' A24 A visit to a cold, lecturing male doctor who treats Agnes with zero sympathy roots 'Sorry, Baby' in the harsh reality that sexual assault victims deal with, as does a strange meeting with women from the university who tell Agnes there's nothing they can do. But these scenes are just part of Agnes's journey and are presented without heavy-handedness. The stunned reactions of Ackie and Victor in these scenes contribute darkly funny moments; the actors have incredible chemistry together. Advertisement Though it makes a statement about how someone deals with the bad things that happen, 'Sorry, Baby' isn't out to make Agnes a pitiable figure. Life goes on for her, and as she attempts to heal, the bad thing becomes more distant in her memory. But that doesn't mean it's completely gone; this movie is too smart to contemplate the myths of closure. For example, a scene in a courthouse turns jury duty into an uncomfortable reminder that Decker got away with his crime (the scene also hints that Agnes may be nonbinary). And a conversation with a mean and petty former classmate played by Kelly McCormack incites a triggering event. Eva Victor and John Carroll Lynch in 'Sorry, Baby.' A24 The film's best scene, which is excerpted in the trailer, is a one-off featuring a sandwich shop owner played by John Carroll Lynch. His touching conversation with Agnes is a commentary on how it's often easier to bare your soul to a stranger you'll never see again. Lynch is so good that you hope his character will cross paths with Agnes again. As time passes, Agnes becomes a professor, shares big life moments with her bestie, and develops a friend with benefits relationship with her goofy neighbor, Gavin (Lucas Hedges). He's a nerdy type, so he's hilariously appreciative of the sex he's getting. But even this diversion has the potential traps of reality: In a well-written scene where the two share a bath, Gavin is both a figure of comfort and a reminder of societal and patriarchal rules. Advertisement Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges and Eva Victor in 'Sorry, Baby.' A24 It all leads up to that final scene with the baby, which plays less as an apology and more like an affirmation. Agnes speaks to us as well, saying the things we all wish we were told early on in life, imparting lessons we've already learned the hard way. Passing on a bit of wisdom is a wise way to end a movie. 'Sorry, Baby' is not only wise, it's funny, poignant, and one of the year's best films. ★★★★ SORRY, BABY Written and directed by Eva Victor. Starring Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, John Carroll Lynch, Kelly McCormack, Louis Cancelmi. At Coolidge Corner, AMC Boston Common. 104 min. R (sex, profanity, discussion of sexual assault) Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Review: ‘Sorry, Baby' captures trauma's quiet aftermath
'Sorry, Baby' is a movie made on its own terms. Over and over, the film comes up with ways to irritate, distance or bore the audience, and yet by the end it lands as a worthy and emotionally authentic experience. It's written and directed by San Francisco-raised performer Eva Victor, who cast herself in the lead role, a strategy that, at least in the beginning, seems questionable. Victor is intelligent and original, but not inherently engaging, and the woman Victor plays is offbeat and odd. So right away we have a vaguely creepy protagonist played by a fairly unknown actress of limited appeal. To make matters more difficult, Victor adopts an off-putting narrative strategy that zigzags through time. 'Sorry, Baby' is told in five chapters, each with its own title (such as 'The Year with the Bad Thing'). The effect gives the movie a start-and-stop quality, as if every 20 minutes, the film has to completely start over. And the difficulties don't end there. As a screenwriter, Victor has a fondness for scenes that have no story significance beyond how they happen to illustrate or impact the main character's emotional life. So we'll get a scene in which Agnes (Victor), a young, small-town English professor, ends up getting dismissed from jury duty for coming across as a weirdo. The scene itself might be interesting, but there's no follow-up in the next scene. It's just its own disparate entity. Finally, Victor seems to be operating from a narrative strategy (one is tempted to call it a narrative philosophy) of not showing you the obvious, but rather what you usually don't see. This is a risky approach, but Victor makes a case for it. For example, there's a scene in which Agnes's best friend, Lydie (Naomi Ackie), leaves after a short visit. Instead of ending the scene with her leaving, Victor, as director, lingers to show Agnes minutes later, in the house. I'm not sure I've ever seen a movie that has better captured the dead silence that fills a house after a beloved guest has left. More crucially, Victor doesn't film the 'bad thing' that happens to Agnes. We just see the house in which the bad thing takes place. Then we see Agnes leaving and driving home, clearly stunned. This bad thing is the movie's pivotal event, which is later described by Agnes in ways that leave most aspects clear but others ambiguous. Victor is not interested in the strict legal definition of what happened to Agnes, but rather in showing the short- and long-term effects of trauma. This is where Victor and the film distinguish themselves. To see any one scene in isolation is to come away with the impression that Victor is giving a withheld and somewhat peculiar performance. But, in fact, there's a distinct difference between Agnes before and after the 'bad thing,' just as there's a difference between Agnes one year after the bad thing and three years after. Victor's performance is gradated in a way to make us appreciate, in a visceral way, what the film is intent on conveying: the lingering half-life of trauma. Trauma just doesn't go away at our convenience. Trauma is on its own schedule. In this way, the casting of Victor as Agnes turns out to be ideal. Victims aren't always cuddly. Trauma can happen to prickly, idiosyncratic people, who will all suffer and recover in their own way. 'Sorry, Baby' attempts to tell a story about trauma as experienced in life and not as portrayed in the movies — and in its own distinct way, it succeeds.
Qatar Tribune
4 days ago
- Sport
- Qatar Tribune
Palmeiras beat Botafogo to reach CWC quarters
PA Media/dpa London Palmeiras edged out Brazilian rivals Botafogo 1-0 after extra-time on Saturday from Paulinho's winner to book their place in the quarter-finals of the Club World Cup. There was little to chose between the two South American sides as the opening tie of the knockout stage proved a cagey affair at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia. At the end of the first half, Palmeiras midfielder Richard Rios forced Botafogo goalkeeper John Victor into a flying save from his rising drive. Chelsea-bound Palmeiras forward Estevao saw a goal ruled out for offside five minutes into the second half, before Victor tipped over a glancing header from Mauricio. After neither side could find a breakthrough in normal time, Botafogo goalkeeper Victor produced another fine stop at full stretch to palm away Rios' 20-yard strike. Palmeiras made the decisive breakthrough in the 10th minute of extra-time when substitute Paulinho cut into the penalty area from the right and clipped a low shot into the far corner. Botafogo - who finished second in Group B, having recorded a shock 1-0 win over European champions Paris Saint Germain - carved out an opening early in the second period of extra-time when Igor Jesus headed over and Vitinho then crashed a volley wide at the far post. Palmeiras were reduced to 10 men with four minutes remaining when captain Gustavo Gomez was shown a second yellow card following an off-the-ball tussle with Botafogo defender Alexander Barboza.
