Sorry, Baby Parent Guide

With a delicate balance between honoring difficult subject matter and providing moments of comedic levity, Sorry, Baby is a beautifully honest portrayal of life after trauma and the disorientation of transitioning into adulthood.

Broken up into five nonlinear sections, Sorry, Baby jumps around in time, depicting the years around the time when Agnes (Eva Victor) is sexually assaulted. (This isn’t a spoiler; it’s in the trailer.) Agnes is a literary professor at the University where she attended graduate school. Her best friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who is newly married, comes and visits Agnes and shares the news that she is pregnant. Flashing back to graduate school, Agnes is working on completing her thesis with her classmates and advisor, Professor Decker (Louis Cancelmi), who praises her work and invites her to discuss it with him at his home. Afterward, Agnes discloses to Lydie (her roommate at the time) that she was assaulted. The film notably refrains from depicting the event onscreen or using explicit language to describe it. Lydie supports her as she goes to the hospital and reports it to the university. Before the report is filed, Decker resigns and disappears. The movie finds dark humour in the absurdities Agnes experiences following her assault and the insensitivity and empty platitudes that are far too common in these scenarios.

At some point within the years following her assault, Agnes achieves professional success and begins an awkward but sweet relationship with her neighbor Gavin (Lucas Hedges). Devoid of the cliches and trivialization so often seen in productions with heavy subject matter, Sorry, Baby feels like a real and raw depiction of the experiences so many individuals have following trauma as they try to find themselves while those around them move on. It’s not a film driven by high drama or fast pacing; instead, it dwells in the ordinary, quiet moments of Agnes’s daily life. The narrative doesn’t seek to explain her experience but simply accompanies her through it, creating space for reflection rather than resolution. Lydie and Agnes’ friendship is the primary relational focus of the movie and, just as it would in real life, the relationship evolves as Lydie moves and starts a family of her own. Agnes is portrayed as a whole, funny, intelligent, and awkward individual, and we watch the way she copes in her day-to-day. The emotional tone of the film doesn’t leave you with happiness or despair, but rather a sense of quiet gratitude that Agnes continues to exist.

While avoiding graphic imagery or overly vivid descriptions, the plot remains focused on the internal experience of Agnes’ assault. Although there is mature subject matter in regard to the physical relationship between Gavin and Agnes, it is brief and intentional. If this film is one you would like to watch but are uncomfortable with intimacy scenes, it would be extremely easy to skip if you are streaming it at home. Additionally, the language does not feel overdone or crude for the sake of itself, but realistic in the day-to-day life of an adult within this context. As expected, there is lots of potentially triggering subject matter, such as discussion of suicide and a depiction of a panic attack, but none of it is sensationalized or used as a device to shock the audience.

In all, Sorry, Baby is a tender, brave film that doesn’t offer easy answers or tidy endings. Instead, it invites us to sit with discomfort, ambiguity, and continue to find humour, even as we endure pain.