Forgive me for what is about to be a bit of a sentimental beginning to this story. As a person who covers movies for a living, I've often heard stories of critics or editors going to film festivals and seeing the start of a legendary career. People speak with reverence about seeing Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992, for example, or Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides at Cannes in 1999. Those stories are always accompanied with a sense of wonder, like they can't believe they were lucky enough to be in that place at that time to witness that thing. I've always hoped to have a moment like that myself. And this year, with Sorry, Baby premiering at Sundance, I finally got the chance.
Eva Victor's beautiful directorial debut, which comes out in limited release today, follows Agnes, (played by Victor) a grad student who experiences something traumatic at the hands of a person they trust. The story focuses less on the traumatic event itself and on all the ways Agnes tries to cope and heal after the fact, especially as the people around them start to move on with their own lives. It blends a sharp poignancy about grief with moments of humor and light, relying on the comedic sense Victor used in the front-facing videos they became known for. Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice, Mickey 17) plays Lydie, Agnes's best friend and anchor, and Lucas Hedges (Ladybird, Manchester by the Sea) plays Gavin, Agnes's neighbor. They both try to keep Agnes grounded as she moves through her own healing.
The movie earned glowing reviews out of Sundance and is produced by Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning director of Moonlight. Cosmopolitan sat down with the movie's three leads to talk through making the movie in less than four weeks, how Victor got both Ackie and Hedges to hop on board, and why the friendship at the center is the real romance.
Eva, I know that you wrote the script for this in a cabin in Maine. Did that influence the setting of the film, or were you always thinking about a cold, Northeastern vibe?
Eva Victor: It did influence the setting of the film. I felt very inspired by it, and I felt that it was both upsettingly cold and dreary and lonely, and also at the same time very romantic. I loved that. It's a very personal story, but I found a lot of joy in creating parts of it. Maine was a huge part of the creation of the story.
I grew up in San Francisco and there's no seasons. Seasons tell time in a way that feels so weird, and you feel time differently, and winter is so weird in terms of loneliness. When we finally decided to shoot near Boston, it was about finding locations that felt sort of analogous to the places I had imagined them taking place in Maine.
Seasons do mark the passing of time in a way that is hard to communicate otherwise.
EV: The whole shoot was supposed to have snow, and we scheduled it at that exact time to try to capture snow, and it snowed the weekend before, and then the last shot of the film, there was a little snow coming down. We couldn't even use that because it didn't match. Then I found out that happened to Certain Women, Kelly Reichardt's movie, and I was like, okay, so it's a good thing.
The film uses a non-linear structure in a very impactful way. Was there ever a version of the draft that was linear?
Eva: Always non-linear. It was always starting with the friendship weekend away, the joy of that. You have to fall in love with them in order to later care. In the edit, we experimented with many versions of how that beginning moved. And our final realization is that if you don't have this moment where Naomi does this thing where she's like, you're fucking your neighbor, Gavin, waving her arms around, the film doesn't work. I want to start the film with the joy and the love, because then there's something you lose. And I also wanted to give Agnes this fighting chance of being a whole person. As a society, we often flatten people who've been through that sort of trauma.
I know you all only had 24 days to shoot this movie. How did that feel while you were doing it?
Naomi Ackie: It's what I love about filmmaking. Every film feels like a student film. Every single one.
Lucas Hedges: Even Mickey 17?
Naomi: To an extent, yeah. You're always conscious of time, and you're always running around. It's like a house. No matter how big it is, you'll always feel it.
Eva: No matter the budget, time is time.
Lucas: Every human is mortal and every film is mortal. There's no amount of money you can do to make something immortal.
Eva: And sometimes time is a constraint that's beautiful.
Lucas and Naomi, you have had the chance to work with multiple first time feature directors. Lucas, I'm thinking of Greta Gerwig with Lady Bird, and Naomi, I'm thinking of Zoë Kravitz with Blink Twice. What is the best part about working with a first time feature director?
Naomi: It's like when you watch a toddler and they start making their first words. You're actually watching someone build the language for the first time. That's really, really cool. And usually that language evolves over time. With Eva, with Zoë, the film you make is who you are. And then if you're a part of that first creation of that first language, then you have the privilege of getting to watch how that evolves over time. When I'm going to watch Eva's next movie, I can see how they stretched.
Eva, you thought of Lydie as the romantic lead of the film. Naomi, did you feel it that way when you read it and when you were performing?
Naomi: Yeah, I did actually. It was even in feedback that we got about their friendship, this reminds me of me and my best friend. It also made my job very easy, to enact that idea of a really strong bond and a friendship. Friendships are romantic. They're the loves of your life. And you get to choose it.
Their friendship does feel so lived in. Did you guys meet before you were cast in the film?
Eva: When I was looking for this partner on the film, I would always say, Agnes is the moon and Lydie is the sun.
Naomi: And I'm a Leo, so that makes sense.
Eva: Then I met Naomi, and she was so awesome. And then we read together. I fell in love with her, honestly, and it really elevated the film. The film doesn't work if this friendship doesn't work. And it was this huge exhale from everyone, we found this person who makes the film. I feel like God touched me in sending me Naomi.
Naomi: Oh, don't you dare! That's very nice.
Eva: It was just right. That she wanted to do the movie is crazy. I'm still not over that she wanted to do it.
Lucas, I also read that Eva wrote you an impassioned letter asking you to be in the film. Is that what sealed it? Do you remember what was in it?
Lucas: The letter mattered more after I read the script, because the letter takes on the context of the script. I read the letter, and then I read the script, and then I was like, Oh, I can't wait to read the letter again, because now I know who this person is. I got to read something and fall in love with the story, and then immediately connect with it as Lucas. It was a cherry on the top. Immediately I wrote my response, but it was 11 p.m. so I couldn't send it until I got up. I got up early the next day to reach out to my manager. And I sleep in, so... I woke the fuck up.
We don't get a ton of backstory about your character Gavin in the film, but I am curious whether you invented any story about him.
Lucas: I pictured him being an opera singer. The film is operatic almost, in terms of the emotions. Even the sets, it feels like somebody could just start singing. He also felt big, in a way that was full and yet also inherently silly. And there's something about an opera singer that's inherently kind of laughable. What they do is so earnest. They're stuck in a gesture so large that you can't help feeling bad for them.
Something this film nails is the uniquely terrifying feeling when your best friend has a kid. Eva, where that was coming from for you? Do you all relate to that feeling?
Eva: The experience Agnes is having is the classic thing of being left behind. Lydie shows up with their partner, who is a funhouse mirror, evolved version of Agnes. Agnes has been the baby, and Agnes is like, I'm not the baby anymore. And so the baby takes on this pain of, I'm not gonna get all the love anymore, which is inherently selfish. In moments after trauma, the way to survive is to just think about yourself, which is selfish to people around you, but it's also necessary for survival.
Though Lydie has done all this generous loving and care, the end of the film is the first time Agnes is able to see outside herself and see Lydie's need, which is wanting to go on a walk with her partner. Agnes watching the baby for 20 minutes is obviously a super small thing that doesn't balance anything out, but is a moment of, this isn't about me. And I think for Agnes, that's huge. And then Agnes seeing the baby, that's the moment when Agnes is like, I'm going to be able to give you what Lydie gave to me. It's really small, and it's not at all balanced. But I think that is the small change of going from FOMO to, I am of use, just not how I used to be.
