In ‘Sorry, Baby,' writer, director, and star Eva Victor sought new ways to make sense of trauma recovery

Boston Globe

2 days ago

'It's a story about trying to heal, more than about healing,' says Victor, who was previously best known for acting in '
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The film's deft touch (the assault is never seen) and finely tuned balance of pain and humor earned it critical acclaim: at the Sundance Film Festival, it was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize and won a screenwriting award; it was also nominated for three awards at the Cannes Film Festival.
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When 'Sorry, Baby' opens, Agnes (Victor) is a literature professor at the school where she got her graduate degree… and where she had been assaulted by her thesis advisor. She welcomes old grad school friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who is visiting both to check up on Agnes and to share big news: she's having a baby.
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When Lydie asks if it's hard still being at the school, Agnes responds, 'It's hard being anywhere.' When Lydie tells Agnes about the baby, Agnes's first reaction is to ask, 'Are you scared?'
Those are telling responses, Victor says. 'There's a selfishness to trying to heal from trauma that's necessary. You have to focus on yourself, so relationships become unbalanced.'
The film shifts back in time to the year of 'the bad thing' and its aftermath, working its way back forward as Agnes experiences a series of setbacks in her efforts to find level ground, before finally finding some equilibrium thanks to the support of Lydie and Gavin (Lucas Hedges), a quirky and lonely but sweet and sincere neighbor.
'Healing is super nonlinear and one thing can set you back two years,' Victor says. 'There's a jury duty scene where Agnes is forced out of her cave too soon, which makes her retreat more. I put Agnes through a lot, because that's what happens.'
Before the pandemic, Victor had made their name by getting laughs, working at the feminist satire website Reductress and the Story Pirates, an arts education group that adapts children's stories into short comic sketches, and by posting comedic videos of cultural commentary that went viral.
In 2020, 'with life on pause, I thought about what I want to do before I die,' they recall, while also watching dozens of 'beautiful, intense, and devastating movies' by directors like Jane Campion, Mike Leigh, and David Lynch. 'I liked how heightened but human they were, and how movies can double down on what it means to be a person.'
Inspired, Victor decided to take their own trauma story 'head on.'
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'But I got to build a world around this character, so the whole story supports her journey, and her attempt at survival is the center of the story,' Victor says, adding that the perpetrator, played by Louis Cancelmi, only has a few scenes, then disappears 'so the focus was in the right spot.'
They sent the screenplay to Barry Jenkins ('Moonlight'), who had followed Victor on social media. He and his team produced the movie and encouraged Victor to direct.
'That was quite meaningful, because I got to make this on my own terms,' Victor says. 'With this kind of trauma, someone decides where your body goes without your permission, so getting to say, 'My body goes here' and then having a crew of people say 'We'll light that spot, we'll support you' was great.'
Victor stayed in Boston while prepping the film, which shot in and around Ipswich, piecing together different towns to make one fictional town. 'I was inspired by the cold and the gray, but also the New England small college town energy,' Victor says. 'It reminded me of
Their co-stars were impressed by Victor as both a writer and director. 'This film has so much space for human beings as they are, without the extra stuff around it,' says Ackie, whose recent films like 'Blink Twice' and '
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The one stylized choice was telling the story in a non-linear way, but Ackie found 'it explains Agnes's emotional landscape and informs the viewer in a way that I didn't anticipate.'
Victor says they introduced Agnes several years on so that we could see her, despite the obvious pain she's suffering, able to experience joy with Lydie. 'We flatten people who've been through this kind of trauma — we don't want to face the fact that this could happen to any of us, so we make them into tragic figures in our heads and then try to simplify people and dismiss them,' Victor says. 'I wanted audiences to meet Agnes first as a full person.'
For all its pathos, Ackie says, 'Sorry, Baby' is genuinely funny. 'There are countless awkward moments everyone feels internally every single day — I feel awkward all the time, and what's funny is how actual human beings handle those moments.'
The seamless shifts in tone 'made us feel like we collectively pulled off a magic trick,' adds Hedges, who plays Agnes' neighbor with a wonderful guilelessness.
Watching the film and seeing how Victor directed the 'bad thing' — showing Agnes going into her professor's house then staying focused on the exterior as time passes until she finally emerges and, in a state of shock, walks to her car and drives home — he says he felt, 'I've never seen this, something where I felt so involved in something that I'm not seeing.'
Victor says not showing what happened was not just about avoiding trauma porn.
'We're watching the house in the way that Agnes is experiencing the moment — this sense of doom creeps up on us — and the trauma response of freezing is a dissociative thing.'
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And having a devastated Agnes tentatively recount the assault to an empathetic Lydie — the first scene Victor wrote — makes audiences take her at her word. 'The reason the rest of the film isn't a tragedy is because of Lydie's support and love and the way she listens to Agnes.'
While they were telling this extremely personal story, Victor didn't wrap their head around the idea that people would eventually see the film. 'I don't think I totally understood how exposed I'd be,' they say.
But Victor has no regrets. 'It was a powerful and meta way to make decisions for myself and for my body and to have people support that and now to celebrate it is really meaningful.'