Friendship, Survival, and the Messy Beauty of Sorry, Baby

Content Note: Sexual assault

Eva Victor’s debut feature Sorry, Baby is one of those films that sneaks up on you. Watching it on a Sunday afternoon at Melbourne International Film Festival, it left an imprint that I find myself returning to. On the surface, it’s a story about trauma and the messy aftermath of grief, but what makes it exceptional is the way filmmaker Eva Victor resists turning pain into spectacle. Instead, she crafts something quiet and tender: a film about friendship and the complicated process of living with what we can’t change.

Victor wears three hats here – writer, director, and lead actor – and the film carries her distinct voice in every frame. As a filmmaker, I know how hard it is to make a film at all, let alone to create something this assured as a first-time feature. To hold all those roles and still deliver a work so sharp, warm, and cohesive is nothing short of remarkable. The film is funny, awkward, raw, and deeply human, often all at once. That blend is what makes it feel so original: it acknowledges heaviness, but never lets it smother the story. The moments of humour land like lifelines –reminders that even in the wake of the hardest things, there’s absurdity, connection and grace.

As a survivor of sexual violence, I found this film profoundly moving. Too often, stories about trauma flatten survivors into tropes. Sorry, Baby is different. Trauma does change you – at least, it did me. It reshapes relationships, self-perceptions, rhythms of everyday life. But it doesn’t have to define you. Sorry, Baby finds a way to say this, and more, with compassion, but without sentimentality.

We never see the assault on screen – and we don’t need to. This is not a film that throws around rape as a plot device (we’ve seen far too many of those). This is a nuanced study of how we make sense of it – or, perhaps, when sense is never to be made, how we grow, around it.

What struck me was how beautifully the film explores friendship, specifically female friendship, in all its love and complexity. It highlights the importance of these relationships, especially in the face of trauma and the loneliness that comes with it. Naomi Ackie and Victor’s characters adore each other wholeheartedly, but life happens: distance, babies, responsibilities, the quiet pulls of adulthood. Those things can change the shape of a relationship, and that can hurt. The film reminds us that change doesn’t diminish what was, or what will be. Intimacy ebbs and flows and I loved watching this refreshing depiction on screen. More, please.

The performances across the board are beautifully tuned. Lucas Hedges delivers a perfect performance as does Ackie, and Victor’s own holds everything together. There’s a looseness to her acting that feels lived-in, which I suppose, is to be expected, given this is very much her story, based on her lived experience.

The visual choices are restrained and effective, cinematography and production design included, and this lets the rawness of the story shine.

What lingers is how much care the film has for its characters. This isn’t a narrative about overcoming or neatly resolving trauma. It’s about learning to live with it and about finding moments of levity in spaces that feel unbearable. Victor’s approach is understated, and the film isn’t afraid of awkward silences or emotional ambiguity. But for those willing to sit with it, Sorry, Baby offers something rare: a depiction of one survivor’s lived experience of navigating what comes after assault.

Weeks later, I’m still thinking about it.