Sorry Baby – Film Review
by Hugh Maguire

Director – Eva Victor
Writer – Eva Victor
Stars – Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Louis Cancelmi

According to Rape Crisis England/ Wales, some 71,227 rapes were reported in 2024.  The statistic is staggering, especially when one considers how many more incidents are never reported.  One such non-reported case is at the heart of this considered, carefully-paced and thoughtful exploration of the impact and repercussions of such an assault.  There is no overt buildup to the crime, no evocative score suggesting a looming moment of concern.  Everyone seems perfectly pleasant and agreeable, if in a college-campus kind of way.  There is nothing sexually graphic, nothing overtly violent – but the crime remains ever present.  Through an accumulation of almost self-contained ‘chapters,’ we explore in retrospect the circumstances of the assault itself and its impact.  We follow, or more correctly glimpse, how that impact has consequences over the years.

A number of female students share a house in the woods at one of those almost mythical rural American campuses.  Trees and college buildings are scattered around a sprawling site, giving everything an almost dark-woods feeling. The setting captures that all-American dream, so to speak, learning, ambition and social harmony.  Yet there can still be crimes and misdemeanours.  Under the guise of having her coursework mentored, the gifted student, Agnes, visits her much-loved tutor ostensibly to discuss her work and research progress.  We do not witness the ‘deed’ so to speak, but we become privy to the tongue-tied awfulness of having to articulate what exactly happened.  In an impressive sequence of acting and direction, Agnes shares with her roommate the details of what happened.  This is done brilliantly – the mere articulation of something acknowledging an actual action.

With the roommate’s encouragement, they pursue a limited amount of reporting to college officials, but significantly not to the police.  The college officials, trained and tutored in how to show empathy, are ineffective; they unwittingly provide some of the comic relief in the film.  Comic moments, well, gentle comic moments, punctuate the film.  Comedy can happen even in the darkest moments, akin to life itself.

Despite her ‘bestie’, Agnes clearly has to tackle the consequences herself.  Can she allow herself to have a sexual relationship with a man?  Can friendship survive distance when the roommate moves to New York?  Agnes, now occupying the same office as her erstwhile assailant, must also move her career on and cope with a teaching load which takes a class on Nabokov’s still controversial Lolita (1955). It is measured, never hectoring, and makes for insightful viewing.