Sorry, Baby

Grade: B+

The performances in Sorry, Baby are so convincing, that I had a funny moment when researching the cast. Louis Cancelmi plays a grad school professor who does something bad to Eva Victor – who wrote, directed, and stars as a student of his. They had previously worked together on the Showtime series Billions. I literally thought “She chose to work with him again? Bet she regrets it now.”

The film bounces around in time, and is broken up into chapters with title cards such as “The year with the bad thing” or “The year with the baby.” You, like me, may be growing weary of movies that do this, but the filmmaking and performances are strong enough to have made this concern quickly evaporate. As for the Bad Thing (as it’s so delicately put), we don’t see it. I was frustrated, thinking we were left to just guess, or piece it together based on dialogue we MIGHT get later. Classic indie movie move. Soon after, though, we hear about it, as Eva Victor’s character recounts it in raw forthright detail to her best friend (Naomi Ackie – Whitney Houston from I Wanna Dance With Somebody). I usually say it’s better to show rather than tell, but this scene is so chilling and powerful that I can’t imagine getting this narrative information in a better way.

The Bad Thing isn’t the one and only plot point on the table. The film allows itself to be about other things sometimes. Like Viggo Mortensen in The Dead Don’t Hurt, Eva Victor wears many hats, but pulls off a fabulous performance in a strong movie. In a smaller supporting part, Kelly McCormack is hilarious, and can steal a scene with just a facial expression. The couple of actors I’d seen before don’t have gigantic roles, but Lucas Hedges (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Lady Bird, Manchester by the Sea) and John Carroll Lynch (the Zodiac killer in Zodiac) are effective breaths of fresh air. I loved that other than Cancelmi’s character, obviously, all the men in Sorry, Baby are good men. In their own ways, they actually help Victor’s character through what’s happening with her – rather than being brushed off with a “you wouldn’t understand.”

The movie’s title phrase will make sense by the end. It’s a touching button of hope after a journey that is often sad and dark. Everything rings true and feels earned. Nothing comes across as artificial. Sorry, Baby is a pretty great movie that grows in beauty in my head, the more I let it sit with me.

Grade: B+