'Sorry, Baby': How Eva Victor turned 'very personal' trauma into a must-see comedy
'I was the tallest Wendla in the history of the world,' deadpans Victor, 31, whose lanky 5-foot-11 frame is a frequent punchline in her comedy. 'I was like, 'This is my life.' It was very formative for me. I could do the whole 'Mama Who Bore Me (Reprise)' for you right now.'
The former theater kid is now a first-time filmmaker, winning a best screenplay prize at Sundance Film Festival for the beautifully tender and wryly observed 'Sorry, Baby' (in theaters nationwide July 25).
The movie follows a newly tenured English professor named Agnes (Victor) as she discovers that her best friend, Lydie (Naomi Ackie), is pregnant. But while Lydie and their grad-school classmates are checking off major life milestones, Agnes is still emotionally stunted after being raped years earlier by a thesis adviser, Decker (Louis Cancelmi).
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'It's a very personal story and I took great joy in it being narrative fiction,' says Victor, who uses they/she pronouns. 'Naomi said this thing that really stuck with me, about how trauma becomes like a stone in a river. You don't get to choose that it's put there, and a lot of the pain is trying to get rid of the stone. But that's actually not possible – it's really about figuring out how to move and grow around it.'
'Sorry, Baby' is disarmingly funny despite the serious subject matter, as Agnes finds comfort in her sheepish neighbor, Gavin (Lucas Hedges), and butts up against the clinical ways that people in power speak to her about assault. Victor, who gained prominence with their viral comedy videos during the pandemic, drew from a wide swath of cinematic influences, ranging from 'Juno' to 'Fargo' to 'Singin' in the Rain.'
Victor recently chatted with USA TODAY about the film:
Edited and condensed for clarity.
Question: There's a moment that really moved me, when Agnes says, "I don't see myself getting older or having kids. I don't see myself at all." What does that line mean to you?
Eva Victor: Agnes had this youthful lust for life and her career and her creative expression, and among the many things that were taken from her through this experience, one of them is that dreaming ability. I imagine a world where Agnes is able to dream again, but she is robbed of imagining the future and forced to confront the daily tasks of the world that were once easy and are now extremely hard to get through.
I think when she says, 'I can't see myself,' she's speaking to, 'My mind is empty when I imagine what could happen next. People around me are able to see things, but right now, I can't.' So that line means a lot to me, too.
Agnes and Lydie often tell each other, "Please don't die." It's a seemingly grim yet relatably heartfelt sentiment – where did that come from?
I had a playwriting teacher in college that said this thing I think about all the time, which is that saying 'I love you' is wonderful, but how do these characters say 'I love you?" What is the way that they're able to communicate that in their own private language? On 'Grey's Anatomy,' Cristina and Meredith say, 'You're my person,' and in this movie, I feel like that might be Agnes and Lydie's version of it.
There are many quiet scenes of characters supporting Agnes, whether it's through a long hug or a sandwich. Did you ever have to resist the urge to make it "more Hollywood?"
There's a part where Agnes gets lighter fluid from Gavin, and I remember writing, 'Oh, she goes to Decker's office and tries to light it on fire.' But the next day, I looked at it and was like, 'That's not what she wants.' Instead, she goes home and she's like, 'I almost did something crazy.' In moments that I wanted to indulge in more movie energy, I tried to remember what this person would actually do.
Also, I wanted the world to have people in it who aren't very good at reading the room, like the doctor and the HR women. When Agnes goes to jury duty, there are a bunch of prying questions that feel very scary and make her retreat back into her hole. So I wanted it to be what felt true to me: this combination of people who are lifesaving and holding this person, and then people who are not able to see her pain.
How did your experiences making videos for social media, and writing for the satire site Reductress, inform your work on this movie?
The muscle of putting something into the world when no one's asking for it from you is embarrassing and necessary. I never had the experience of someone coming in like, 'You should play this!' I've always been making stuff in order to make stuff happen, so the scrappiness was helpful, like, 'Just keep working!' Also, those videos got me in the habit of watching myself and quickly making decisions about whether it was a good take for me or whether I wanted to do it again. That relationship with myself was already figured out by the time I got to set.
Have you started to think about what's next?
I'm going to cuddle with my cat. I've been doing so much traveling and I really have missed him. It's so funny, when I was writing 'Sorry, Baby,' the only thing I wanted was to share it with the world and open all the floodgates of my feelings. Now that that's happening, I think going back to a private space is going to be just the perfect remedy I need and we'll see what comes.
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