Eva Victor has made an astonishing debut function — writing, directing, and starring within the jarringly humane comedy Sorry, Child.
The Sundance buzz on this one was robust from the beginning, with critics cheering its distinctive voice. Then Victor gained the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award out of the fest, and the movie bought acquired by A24, the cool boutique distribution studio behind such hits as Woman Chook, Every part In all places All At As soon as, and Midsommar. However do not let the status that already surrounds this Sundance choice idiot you. Sorry, Child is not an esoteric arthouse providing, however a gently sensational film about being harmed and therapeutic, made all of the extra exceptional as a result of it is Victor’s first movie.
Earlier than she was a multihyphenate moviemaker, Victor was making her mark on-line with hilarious viral movies, like her satirizing of Straight Pleasure Month complaints or doing a spot-on impression of a glamorous girl who undoubtedly did not homicide her husband. In these movies, Victor is scalpel-sharp in parodying archetypes of conservative hysteria and movie noir with equal ease. But her film would not share this madcap power — and properly so! That model of humor would possibly get grating when stretched to a feature-length format, or extra seemingly it’d undercut the intense material that’s on the coronary heart of Sorry, Child.
As an alternative, Victor fastidiously calibrates a tone that’s bracingly sincere and charmingly offbeat.
What’s Sorry, Child about? (Set off warning forward.)
The log line out of Sundance was vexingly obscure: “Something bad happened to Agnes. But life goes on… for everyone around her, at least.” Nonetheless, having seen the movie, I can recognize how this vagueness speaks to the filmmaker’s cautious tone in addressing its “something bad.”
Extra a set off warning than a spoiler: Agnes (Victor) has been sexually assaulted by a trusted acquaintance. This occasion performs on the heart of the movie, however is handled much less like a surprising reveal and extra just like the mild peeling again of an onion. In-built three chapters, Sorry, Child begins close to the top, “The Year With the Baby.” Years after the assault, Agnes is being visited by her greatest pal and grad college roommate Lydie (Blink Twice‘s Naomi Ackie), and the 2 have a comfortable intimacy that enables them to talk in a shorthand we are able to witness however not absolutely perceive. What’s clear is that whereas Lydie has blossomed — constructing a lifetime of her personal with a associate and soon-to-be-baby — Agnes has grow to be caught in a reclusive rut. The trigger for that is delicately unveiled in chapter two, “The Year with the Bad Thing.”
On this prolonged flashback, Agnes is a grad pupil, devoted to her thesis beneath the tutelage of a trusted professor (Louis Cancelmi). The dangerous factor occurs off-screen, with the digicam ready exterior the home for Agnes because the sky goes from day to nighttime. Then, she is going to come residence to Lydie and discuss out what occurred, greedy to grasp it even because the phrases movement. Nonetheless, the phrase “rape” feels too massive and possibly too concrete. So, at the same time as they go to pressing care, the phrase will not be one they select, however slightly is thrown at them by a bored male physician.
Mashable Prime Tales
Whereas all of this sounds grim, Victor weaves absurdist humor all through, recognizing the deeply ridiculous moments that exist even within the midst of trauma. By way of this complexity, she additionally showcases moments of grace, breadcrumbs that lead us to how an individual would possibly pull by means of a nasty factor to search out one thing past it.
A delicate but chic instance of this stability happens in a chapter set years after her assault. Driving away from the grad college the place she is now a instructor, she pulls over on the aspect of the street, her physique rattled with a panic assault over a revelation that is laborious to deal with. A bald and burly man with a grimace as extensive as his neck shoves his face to her automobile window, bellowing at her that she will’t park right here. However as soon as he sees her hyperventilating, his barking resolve melts.
In an ideal little bit of casting, John Carroll Lynch, who’s performed a suspected serial killer in Zodiac and a mild gynecologist in Babes, switches from one gear to the opposite within the blink of a watch. His tone softens and warms as this stranger coaches Agnes by means of a respiration train, then he asks if she needs a sandwich. It is a candy however weird factor to say. A second later, they sit earlier than his sandwich store, and there is not solely context however a chic and honest second of two strangers connecting. That is what makes Sorry, Child extraordinary, how Victor seamlessly connects empathy and nervousness.
Sorry, Child masterfully blends tones and a top-notch forged.
The movie begins and ends with “The Year with the Baby,” centering on two pivotal visits from Lydie, who gently nudges Agnes to think about if her life is one she needs or has surrendered to. She lives in the identical home they rented as graduate college students, stayed on the similar college, and associates with the identical group of buddies, regardless that they appear to have outgrown one another. However Lydie is her ride-or-die, regardless that she’s moved away from the quaint New England school city to New York Metropolis. And thru her encouragement, Agnes begins to search out her method out of the rut she’s dug.
In between these instances, Victor provides herself a job that is removed from the vainness venture stuff of many a first-time male director at Sundance. Her character will not be some effortlessly charming rogue, simply ready for the world — or some scorching A-list actress — to catch on. Agnes is deeply awkward, providing a hook-up to a open-hearted neighbor (Woman Chook‘s Lucas Hedges) then commenting carelessly on how his penis seems to be whereas delicate. (He’s understandably mortified, albeit momentarily.) In these socially awkward moments of bare honesty (literal and metaphorical on this case), Victor permits us into the intimate world of a lady misplaced. Her underbelly is delicate, and her impulses could be bizarre and messy. And in that, it is inconceivable to not fall for Victor’s Sorry, Child because it embraces the mess that’s rising from damage to therapeutic.
Constructing this world together with her is Ackie, as a bestie with a pointy eye and sharper tongue to any who’d cross her buddies. Hedges is heart-wrenching as a mild would-be beau. Lynch is electrifying in a small however pivotal position. Kelly McCormack, who stood out as a no-shit-taking shortstop in A League of Their Personal, brings a neurotic buzz as a frenemy who brims with skilled jealousy. I might go on, as each supporting participant from the uncaring physician (Marc Carver) to a urgent lawyer follows the shifting tone of Victor’s screenplay with aplomb.
Collectively, all of them construct a narrative that is distinctive but acquainted, and a world we all know however with a twist of wry humor that makes its tough edges a bit extra bearable. So in the long run, because the that means of Victor’s title falls into place, the impact is a bit devastating, however in the end cathartic. Bittersweet, good, and heartwarmingly humorous, Sorry, Child is a film that’s certain to search out an viewers past Sundance. And never simply because A24 is a grasp of promoting offbeat cinema, however as a result of Victor has a voice that’s robust, unusual, and calls for to be heard.
Sorry, Child was reviewed out of the 2025 Sundance Movie Competition.
