Spoilers… always spoilers.

This is not a cozy film but a story wishing for comfort and protection, dreaming of cozy and safe in a world where bad things happen. Where warm knitted sweaters and blankets might really protect us.

Sorry, Baby - a film written and directed by the extraordinary Eva Victor, takes place over 3 years, portraying a deep friendship between two PhD students…Agnes (played by Eva Victor) and Lydie (played by Naomi Ackie) – and how Agnes survives if not heals from this bad thing that happens to her. The story is an intense, nuanced, layered character study of Agnes during a terrible time of her life and yet it manages to mix it up with lovely and funny moments. Please don’t be afraid of the sad subject matter. Eva Victor would want us to watch it and not be afraid. It’s life – stick with her. Watch out as well for lots of interesting, relevant literary references and books being read on screen (e.g., the character Milkman from Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon; Giovonni’s Room by James Baldwin; Lolita and more! Even a clip of the movie 12 Angry Men…).

Our protagonist Agnes is a star PhD candidate in the Literature Department of a small New England University who lives with her best friend in an old white clapboard house isolated in the woods. They are like 4th grade best friends – they study together, eat together, take baths together - jump up and down with joy for each other – hurt for each other – sacrifice for each other.

Agnes comes home late one night not herself…clearly wrecked. Their beloved and admired mentor – novelist and Professor Preston Decker -– has sexually assaulted her. She tells Lydie the story blow by blow. Lydie listens carefully and deeply and puts her in a hot bath and listens more. The rest of the film is about sadness and survival, about healing and not ever healing – loneliness and anger and loss. About the power of love and friendship no matter what.

The day after the assault Decker resigns his position and leaves town. She reports the rape to the University. They refuse to investigate because he doesn’t work there anymore. Agnes doesn’t want to call the police. She says she wants him to be a person that wouldn’t do that. If she has him arrested, he would just be a person in prison who does that. The loss of the relationship they had developed over years is profound. In one minute, she loses the person she thought was a protector, mentor, cheerleader and in his place gains a rapist. A few years later she tells a colleague that Decker must have hated her. Because if you like a person, if you respect a person then there is a certain way you treat them. Like a person. The assault from a trusted professor who encouraged her - praised her to the University always - calls her whole academic career into question. Was she really the “extraordinary” writer he said she was? Did she really deserve her PhD? After she is granted her degree, the University offers Agnes Decker’s teaching position and his very office. Although she is thrilled, she also questions whether she earned this or not. Was his recommendation just to keep her quiet? Did the school offer her the job for the same reason? Should she enjoy and prosper in the light-filled office that was formerly his or should she burn it down?

Life goes on as it does. She teaches and we get a glimpse of her competency and joy in literature and the teaching of it. We see her tentative relationship with a sweet neighbor. And we see her struggle to connect and be able to picture a future with “what everyone wants.” She can’t see past the sadness.

Lydie falls in love – marries and moves to another city. A serious loss. Agnes stays home. Same home. Same school. Lydie worries about Agnes. “Do you ever leave the house?” Their slightly tongue-in-cheek play continues… “Please don’t die,” she says. Agnes responds, "You please don't die." Translation: I love you so much. And in reply I love YOU so much. That never changes.

One day 3 years later Agnes falls apart after a jealous colleague Natasha confronts Agnes and spews that Agnes was Decker’s favorite. That even though she, Natasha, had 5-minute sex with Decker … even so - he never read her own dissertation. Agnes drives a long way out of town, sobbing and unable to think or even breathe. She stops at a roadside sandwich shop with her windows up crying. The owner comes out – a middle-aged man with sadnesses of his own – says he knows someone with anxiety attacks and would she open the window and breathe with him please. They sit outside his shop on a curb and talk together about bad things. (One of the best scenes in the movie.) He reassures her that 3 years from a bad thing isn’t very long at all. Time does not heal all.

Lydie, wife and baby come to visit Agnes. Agnes gets alone time with the baby. Her face is full of love for this baby. She tells her all the things she wished people would have said to her. She holds the baby up to her face and tells her how sorry she is that bad things will happen to her. Sorry, Baby. She hopes they won’t, but they probably will. She will be there for her, she says. She will listen and not be scared. “You can tell me any bad thought, and I will say yes, I have had that thought 10 times worse. You can tell me you want to kill yourself and I will say, yes, I know that feeling. I will be there for you baby no matter what.”