From Sundance 2025: Stories Of Unspoken Grief & Unflinching Truths
| Though vastly different in tone and approach, both André is an Idiot and Sorry, Baby are deeply personal explorations of the burdens we carry and how they shape our understanding of ourselves. Ishita Sengupta writes. | SUNDANCE has long been a home for stories that refuse easy answers. This year, two films — André Is an Idiot and Sorry, Baby — stand out for the ways they navigate pain, memory, and the complexity of human relationships. André Is an Idiot is a quiet, deeply felt reflection on love and regret, its sorrow lingering in the spaces between words. Sorry, Baby , on the other hand, does not allow for silence. It demands to be heard, grappling with trauma and agency in a way that is both deeply unsettling and necessary. While one film mourns what was lost, the other fights to reclaim what was taken — yet both are linked by a profound emotional honesty that lingers long after the screen fades to black. Stream the latest films and shows with OTTplay Premium's Jhakaas monthly pack, for only Rs 249. | André Is An Idiot Is A Complete Tearjerker
| André Ricciardi could be headlining a mockumentary if he could. He has all the chops for it. He is funny, smart, brilliant and irreverent with a sharp and weird mind. He also has an uncanny resemblance with Steve Carell, and much like Michael Scott, the actor’s iconic rendition of a salesman who is as callow as insightful, humour is André’s coping and defence mechanism. It’s his only mechanism. The former advertising veteran could be anything he wants to be, except he cannot. Because he is dying, because André is an idiot.
If André is an Idiot was a fiction film it would have been an inspirational story. The arc is impossible to miss. The camera tracks a terminally ill man. The only way to go is upwards. Here is what can happen: he will brave all odds to emerge victorious. Through his struggle, he is guided and surrounded by his family and their collective endurance distills to a last shot of miraculous victory. Tears are shed and laughter rings in the corridor. If it was fiction, it would be the much-abused heartwarming film that pulls at heartstrings. Directed by Tony Benna, André is an Idiot is a documentary. By definition, it is without embellishments, yet it is as heartwarming as they come. It is liberally peppered with humour and culminates in a tearjerker. Given the premise, this treatment accounts for a discrepancy, and that is the film. | Sorry, Baby Is A Sensational Debut By Eva Victor
| Eva Victor, the American comedian who garnered fame by posting funny videos on Twitter, makes her directorial debut with Sorry, Baby , a startling feature imbued with a clarity of voice that hits one like a block of ice. The narrative is infused with caustic humour (it feels a lot like Fleabag — a compliment) that thrives on absurdity and makes the nuances of the premise more accessible with its lightness without making light of it. The balance is nothing short of astonishing and gains more insight once the revelation drops. Something bad happened to Agnes – she was assaulted by her professor. He was her graduate advisor; she trusted him and he betrayed her.
Sexual abuse lies at the heart of Sorry, Baby . The film acknowledges it in every frame but chooses to showcase the outcome and not the act. The shift heightens the hideousness. We see a house and its bolted door. Outside the sun sets and night falls; our sense of dread grows. When Agnes comes out, her shoes are untied and her walk is funny. She drives home in a daze and recounts the incident to Lydie. She halts and pauses, repeats and forgets details, convincing herself before anyone else that it happened to her.
It is a sensational moment that distills the disorienting aftermath of abuse and the intent of Sorry, Baby , a film less interested in the specifics of assault and more committed to depicting the exhaustion of living with it. Victor grounds the largeness of the experience and scatters Agnes’ life with the smallness of it, drawing out in the process a gut-wrenching portrait of a life that rushes without moving ahead. The humour is built into the discomfort of witnessing it. | Like what you read? Get more of what you like. Visit the OTTplay website , or download the app to stay up-to-date with news, recommendations and special offers on streaming content. Plus: always get the latest reviews. Sign up for our newsletters. Already a subscriber? Forward this email to a friend, or use the share buttons below. | | | This weekly newsletter compiles a list of the latest (and most important) reviews from OTTplay so you can figure what to watch or ditch over the weekend ahead. | | Each week, our editors pick one long-form, writerly piece that they think it worthy of your attention, and dice it into easily digestible bits for you to mull over. | | In which we invite a scholar of cinema, devotee of the moving image, to write a prose poem dedicated to their poison of choice. Expect to spend an
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