Updated July 23, 2025 at 12:02 PM PDT
The Sundance Film Festival is often where up and coming filmmakers hope to land wide distribution deals for their work.
This year, one breakout moment belonged to Sorry, Baby, a tender, offbeat film about life before and after a sexual assault. The film set off a bidding frenzy, eventually sold to A24 for around $8 million.
Written, directed and starring Eva Victor, the film follows Agnes, a graduate student turned English lit professor, as she navigates the long and often surreal aftermath of a traumatic event that is never shown onscreen. The assault is referred to only obliquely, as "the bad thing," and the story unfolds across nonlinear chapters in a college town over several years.
Victor, who first gained popularity with viral comedy videos, brings an unexpected tone to the story that balances unspoken grief and mundane cruelty and friends moving on with their lives with dry humor. Despite the heavy subject matter, Sorry, Baby finds space for laughter, awkwardness and some tenderness.
"I don't really know how to write a straight drama," Victor told NPR's Leila Fadel. "I think this kind of experience is so surreal and bizarre, and so many things do become really funny. The world just becomes sort of a place that feels so absurd."
Produced by Academy Award winner Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), who became an early fan of Victor's social media videos, Sorry, Baby also stars Naomi Ackie as Agnes's best friend, alongside Lucas Hedges and Louis Cancelmi. It opened in select theaters this June and had a wider release earlier this month.
Victor spoke with Morning Edition about using humor to explore trauma and what it's like to finally share something so personal with the world.
This interview is edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Leila Fadel: It might sound super heavy, this terrible thing has happened, you have to figure out a way to heal. But you also bring in comedy. This isn't just a straight drama, and you've done a lot of work in comedy. Why did you bring these moments of levity into such a serious topic?
Eva Victor: I don't really know how to write a straight drama. I think this kind of experience is so surreal and bizarre, and so many things do become really funny. The world just becomes sort of a place that feels so absurd. Some of the laughter happens, I think, because we're just watching two best friends have an amazing time together, and that's just joyful. And then some of the humor is more Agnes, sort of fish out of water, trying to make sense of this world and feeling awkward in it. And there's some comedy in the weirdness of that. And then also, I think, in a more heightened way, the film points a finger in moments at people who are in power, who are being either cruel or just careless.
Fadel: There's a friendship at the heart of this story between your character, Agnes, and Agnes's best friend, Liddy, played by Naomi Ackie. How would you describe Liddy and Liddy's importance in Agnes's life?
Victor: Liddy, to me, I always think of her as the sun and Agnes as the moon. She's this sort of super warm, funny, heart-forward person. I think the reason that friendship is so strong is because Liddy can hold Agnes and then also say, I also want to move to New York, and I also want to start my life and focus on my life. And I think the friendship is allowed to have this beautiful transformation because Liddy left, and there's no resentment of being held back. And I think Agnes loves that.
Fadel: I mean, I think the beautiful thing about this film is that even though this sexual assault is at the center of the story, it is not the center of the story. I mean, you make a decision, actually, not to show it, and you connote it with time, right? With the image of the house where it happens and a passage of time. Why did you make that decision not to show that?
Victor: I think I made the film to not show that. In a way, it was something that was very important to me: to make sure that my audiences, however I could, keep my audience's body safe while watching the film. I tried to create a film that I feel like I needed, and I couldn't find a film that didn't freak me out to watch. And I do think that not going inside actually allows us to remain with Agnes and not be ahead of Agnes. I wanted us to emotionally stay with her, in the confusion, the doom, the bad sense, the fear, without going inside. I wanted us to not know what she went through until she decides to tell us. I also wanted the film to believe her words. Because we never get to be behind the door in real life. We hear about people's experiences, and it feels like we only really know about what happens behind closed doors in movies. And in real life, we hear people talk about what they went through, and I wanted the film to not question her words. I wanted the film to just believe her. And that's not even a question in the film of whether it happened or not.
Fadel: Now you screened the film at the Sundance Film Festival. You had this idea in your mind for a long time, but then you shared it with the world. How did you handle the days leading up to the screening, and what was it like to have it out there for the first time?
Victor: It was so weird. So many people I love were seeing it for the first time, and so many people were there. We'd only screened the film for a maximum of 30 people at a time, so I had no sense if people were going to be on board. And I was drenched in sweat by the end. I mean, it was a beautiful room. Everyone was so warm, and that was really amazing. But I still am in a zone of not believing that the film exists. It's a very surreal thing to go from something you think about for so long and dream up, and then it is this thing that exists outside of me. And I'm so glad it exists outside of me. It's time. I don't want to touch it anymore. I'm done. I think part of the reason why it's such a surreal experience is that the film is really what I wanted to make.
Fadel: That's incredible to hear. Because I know that even when I write a story for radio, I sometimes put it off because I'm scared it won't be what I want it to be. And so I just don't start.
Victor: I am also similar, like, paralyzed. Like, there were many, many moments creating the film that, when I got to the edit, I was so surprised that I was in the movie. I couldn't believe I was in it. I was like, who let me do that?
Adapted and edited for digital by Majd Al-Waheidi and Obed Manuel.
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