In 'Sorry, Baby,' Eva Victor makes a disarming debut

The first thing to love about writer-director-star Eva Victor's extraordinary debut “Sorry, Baby” is how she, as the young professor Agnes, tries, and fails, to hide a tryst with her neighbour.

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Agnes lives in a quaint New England home where her best friend and fellow former grad student Lydie (Naomi Ackie) is visiting. We are just getting to know each of these characters when a knock comes on the door. Gavin (Lucas Hedges) stands outside confused when Lydie answers. Agnes rushes over to act as though he's mistaken her house for his, and not for the first time. “God bless your lost soul,” she says, shooing him away.

The plot of “Sorry, Baby” centres around a traumatic experience for Agnes that unfolds in a chapter titled “The Year With the Bad Thing.” But it would be wrong to define “Sorry, Baby” — or its singular protagonist — by that “bad thing.” In this remarkably fully formed debut, the moments that matter are the funny and tender ones that persist amid crueler experiences.