Readers Write In #829: Sorry, baby (reflections)

By Jeyashree Kathiresan

What instils more hope in you than a young filmmaker’s impressive and very sensitive debut. I watched Sorry, baby, with twenty other Montrealers making the best of the Tuesday-only discounted ticket rates. Twenty is crowd at the Cinema du parc, given that my company during earlier visits has never been over five. Mostly elderly, one of whom asked if I had featured in ‘all we imagine as light’ just as I was stepping in to watch it  while still figuring out what VOSTA meant (Version originale sous-titres anglais).

Tonight, I walked out so content, dare I even say happy watching what the splendid Eva Victor, who has written, directed and featured in Sorry, baby, had managed to pull off. Throughout the film, I felt seen, heard, understood, represented, loved, respected and included. Last I felt all that was after watching the fleabag the second time over.

Agnes (played by Eva) is smart, lovable and funny and her bond with the dream best friend Lydie is the most empathetic I’ve seen friendship depicted on screen. And we travel with Agnes through a few years, the one with the questions, the one when bad things happen, the one with the good sandwich and one with the baby. We were all crackling with laughter at steady intervals during the movie until the very last frame. Let me just say this is the kind of clever writing and staging that invokes laughter in a scene where a victim of rape (the word is never uttered) is getting her rape kit done by a physician trying to help. How could someone write a scene like this convincingly alongside those where Agnes is peering at her neighbor cum boyfriend’s ‘member’ or the scene where she hides a cat from the grocery store employee. Not to mention the brilliant stretch with Agnes in a jury selection session- all at once funny, sad, deep and beautiful.

I also sobbed inconsolably at a scene post mid-point which just involved some breathing.

Don’t we all have similar journeys when bad things happen to us – we are shocked, we deny, we try, we smile, we hope, we doubt, we forget, we guilt, we remember, we escape, we love, we make questionable decisions, and the luckier of us survive, if not thrive. There is an almost cute scene involving the two friends telling each other ‘Don’t die’ and at least one of them means it seriously.

I hope someday my daughter, my nieces and daughters of my friends watch this movie and know that I meant every time I said to them “If bad things happen to you, call me. I’ll come right over, listen, and do whatever makes you feel better” and I hope (against all odds) bad things never happen to them

It helps that they don’t turn the lights on soon after the movie ends. I had my time to breathe, reflect, tie up my hair in a knot, smile and tell myself it is going to be OK for me, and all those little girls I cross paths with.

Thank you Eva!