Sorry, Baby

All around stretches provincial America — a little wild and rough-hewn, yet mesmerizing in its pristine beauty. The wind strokes the tops of pines like a father’s hand, autumn-colored grass curls around the ankles, and foamy crests frolic on the saucer of the sea under the watch of a silent lighthouse. These lands are steeped in coziness and a nearly soporific calm.

After her walk, Agnes will again stroke her bored pet, have a bite to eat, and sit down to write her novel. It is far from finished and, at best, resembles an emerging draft, but even now the ink-scribbled pages are brimming with meaning. Sometimes humorous and hopeful, yet always reminding her of a tragedy that should have long ago been lost in the folds of time.

A couple of years ago, Agnes’s life was different. She dreamed of literature and devoted nearly all her time to working on her dissertation, while in her spare moments she lost herself in the works of others. It was a time both carefree and inspiring, filled with hopes for an impressive future. Her personal life, career, and loyal friends all seemed ready to fall into place in a beautiful pattern.

What inspired Agnes most was the praise of her academic advisor, who had spotted in her awkward frame a genuine, unclouded talent. And it was precisely at his urging that the heroine nearly sank. The familiar outlines of the world blurred, and the very idea of normality cracked — like a saucer that fell from the edge of a table but, against the laws of the universe, did not shatter into a hundred foamy fragments.

Since then, new shades of emptiness have settled in her bewildered gaze. On the one hand, Agnes understood perfectly well that something terrible and destructive had happened to her. On the other, she somehow felt guilty for what had occurred. Because of this confusion, the victim willingly cloaked herself in the robe of an accomplice, and now, looking in the mirror, can utter only a laconic: “Sorry, baby.”

That thought has become an inseparable part of Agnes herself. She wakes up with it, reads Vladimir Nabokov with her students, laughs with her best friend, warms herself in the bath, and falls asleep curled up with a purring cat. What happened has become an unwelcome dividing line — one that can’t be immediately grasped, because the moment it’s spoken of, the people around her begin to act strangely.

For Agnes, the true trial was not what had happened — for despite all its horror, she had escaped relatively unscathed — but the impossibility of opening herself to the world and hearing what it thought of it. In a sense, the heroine found herself locked in a room with dissertation-papered windows, alone with her own thoughts and the indifference of those around her.

Humanity has no concern for Agnes’s suffering — not even its individual members who have gone through something similar. And not because they are heartless. Rather, it is that only a rare few are capable of selflessly offering support and sharing another’s grief. The rest try instead to find a rational kernel in what happened — a concise answer that names the guilty party and ensures they are duly punished.

But in the end, the film “Sorry, Baby” places its emphasis elsewhere — it asserts that trauma is inevitable. Some will be as deep as the ocean, others as wide as a planet, and still others will resemble a jug filled with a constellation of tiny disappointments. Yet each one, no matter its scale, is capable of eclipsing the sun. The light will fade, and darkness will seep into the heart through frightened, wide-open eyes.

And yet, this is nothing to fear. Expecting the next blow only prevents one from accepting the wounds of the past and turning them to one’s advantage. This is the truth that constantly hovers before Agnes, for her life has not only continued but keeps offering her reasons for joy — a loyal friend awaits a new arrival, a kind young man lives next door, and her career is on the rise.