Members of the Portland Critics’ Association, including yours truly, recently posted their picks for the best film of the first half of 2025. It was tough to choose between films such as Sinners, Caught by the Tides, Friendship, and even Thunderbolts*. For the year’s second half, however, despite the avalanche of celluloid headed our way over the next six months, there’s an early lead contender: Writer-director-star Eva Victor’s Sorry, Baby, which immediately establishes its auteur as a major talent and provides one of the more emotionally potent experiences you’ll have in a movie theater in 2025.

It’s hard to know how much of the plot of Sorry, Baby to reveal, since the film’s marketing consists largely of the enigmatic tagline “Something bad happened to Agnes. But life goes on—for everyone around her, at least.” Coverage of the film, however, has not been shy about revealing what the “bad thing” is, so if you want that revelation in the moment, stop reading now and buy a ticket. (One spoiler Victor has revealed is that the adorable kitten on the film’s poster is not harmed, so rest easy on that account.)

The film opens in The Year of the Baby, as Lydie (Naomi Ackie) arrives at the rural Massachusetts cottage where her best friend Agnes (Victor) lives. Lydie arrives bearing wonderful news (“I’ve got a baby in me!”) but there’s an undercurrent to their reunion. They were part of a small cohort of grad students at a nearby college a few years back, most of whom have moved on. But Agnes stayed to teach there and is on the cusp of being named to a full professorship, despite her unease at remaining close to the place where The Bad Thing happened. She’s elusive, gawky, wryly hysterical, and full of a self-assurance that belies her hidden trauma. When she learns a dinner companion has purchased a new home, she asks “What are you gonna put in your house? Oh, right, your stuff.”

The film’s next chapter, The Year of the Bad Thing, flashes back to those grad school years. Lydie, Agnes, and three other students are being mentored by handsome professor Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi), who lavishes praise and attention on Agnes and her work. Lydie is suspicious, and another student, Natasha (Kelly McCormack) is aggressively (and hilariously) jealous. With a name like “Preston Decker” and some other hints dropped, it’s not a shocker that The Bad Thing involves his sexual assault of the trusting Agnes. It’s not depicted on screen, but related in a raw, astonishingly acted monologue Agnes delivers to Lydie while soaking in a bathtub.

Much of the effective dark humor in Sorry, Baby comes in the aftermath of this event, as Agnes deals with institutions (medical and academic) that are almost absurdly inept at addressing her as an actual person. Decker escapes any real punishment, and Agnes is left to fend for herself, especially once Lydie moves to New York City and falls in love. On the page, so many of the scenes in Sorry, Baby seem trite: Agnes’ meet-cute with her dorky neighbor Gavin (Lucas Hedges, Oscar nominated once upon a time for Manchester by the Sea); her adoption of a stray kitten, which leads to a memorable laugh-cry scene with a mortally wounded mouse; her chance roadside encounter with a kindly older gent (John Carroll Lynch, simply marvelous). But Victor the director knows exactly how to use Victor the actor, and the character they create is so grounded, so recognizable, and so sympathetic that these moments bloom with a humanity that’s both universal and unique.

That all of this should emerge from a virtual unknown is all the more remarkable. Victor (who uses they/them pronouns) had appeared in three seasons of the Showtime series Bilions, but they’d never directed anything other than Twitter videos and three-minute movies for Comedy Central prior to this. Of course, it’s impossible to predict where they might go following this amazing debut, which was a labor of love over years and, Victor has said, is at least partly inspired by their own experiences. But one fervently hopes that they don’t end up on the embarrassingly long list of non-male filmmakers who fade back into the industry background after an assured and promising name-maker like this. Sometimes the cliches are true: I laughed, I cried, it became a part of me. (Cinema 21)

Mr. Blake at Your Service!: John Malkovich seems to have entered the “Why the fuck not?” stage of his storied career. (Honestly, glancing at his IMDb credits over the last decade, which include work with Eva Victor on Billions, he seems to have been there for a while.) Following up, at least in its American release, his outré turn as a legendary pop star turned cult leader in Opus, comes this broad, offensively inoffensive piece of geriatric comfort food in which he stars as a successful English businessman who throws it all away to become a butler at a bucolic French bed and breakfast. After arriving there to let a room and being mistaken for the new hire, he sticks around and bonds with the owner (the redoubtable Fanny Ardant) and staff, including the initially chilly cook Odile (Émilie Dequenne, who made her award-winning film debut in the Dardennes brothers’ 1999 Rosetta and tragically died of cancer earlier this year at 43).

Far from this monolinguist to judge, but Malkovich’s French seems, at best, passable, but apropos for his character, who at one point has to be corrected after insulting someone by calling them an “anal orifice.” In general, the entire film, directed by first-timer Gilles Legardinier from his own novel, is as mannered and declamatory as a commedia dell’arte, and about as ably mounted as a 9th-grade production of Molière. Normally, I’m a huge fan of fish-out-of-water stories about butlers, but this one pales in comparison with the classics. The film’s title for its British release was Well Done!, and let’s just say the new one makes more sense. (Living Room Theaters)

Abraham’s Boys: A Dracula Story: It’s 1915, and eighteen years since Dr. Abraham Van Helsing dispatched the vampire Dracula in London, saving Mina Harker from his predations. Now, thanks to the magic of public domain, Van Helsing (Bosch’s Titus Welliver, doing a passable Udo Kier impression), Mina (Jocelin Donahue), and their sons Max (Brady Hepner) and Rudy (Judah Mackey) live in California’s sparsely populated Central Valley, a world away from bloodsucking menaces and creepy fog. Still, as is evident from the funereal vibe and deliberate pace employed by director Natasha Kermani (adapting a Joe Hill short story), the immortal undead have a habit of patiently tracking down their prey. At least that’s what seems to be the case as Mina succumbs to the same sort of hysterical malaise that Bram Stoker put her through, and Abraham methodically trains his progeny in the art of heart-staking and other survival skills. Max, the eldest, begins to chafe at all this gloom and doom, especially after he discovers a woman hiding in a nearby cellar who may or may not be infected. The concept is solid (although it’s not a “Dracula” story in any real sense), but the execution is middling and one-note. (Regal Fox Tower, Bridgeport Village)

Noir City: Portland: Czar of noir Eddie Muller returns to town for another weekend of classic flicks featuring dames, gunsels, and postwar pessimism. The seven films (and one book signing) are all sold out in advance, but if you happen to score one on the secondary market or sneak in, I’d recommend 1953’s 99 River Street, which stars John Payne in a story set several neighborhoods away from his best-known role in Miracle on 34th Street. He’s an ex-boxer, forced to retire after an eye injury, who’s framed for the murder of his gold-digging wife (the great Evelyn Keyes) and relies on the help of an up-and-coming actress (Peggie Castle) to clear his name. Of course, you can’t do wrong with either the stone-cold classic Out of the Past (1947) or the Poverty Row cult fave Detour (1945), although beware: both, especially the former, make cigarette smoking look pretty damned cool. (Hollywood Theatre)

Also opening

Superman: Oh, yeah, there’s also this little number about an undocumented immigrant who overcomes adversity and gets a solid job with a newspaper. Sounds very inspiring. (Wide release)

VOD/Streaming

The Amateur: Rami Malek stars as a CIA analyst, the nerdy kind, who goes to extreme lengths to find and kill the men who murdered his wife in this wannabe ’70s-style thriller that abandons subtlety for spectacle in a way that’s disappointing coming from director James Hawes, the creator of the AppleTV+ series Slow Horses. (Available to rent/buy on major platforms)

The Shrouds: David Cronenberg’s latest mediation on death and sex and more death stars Vincent Cassel as a widower who has developed technology allowing grievers to view the decomposing bodies of their loved ones, including his own dead wife (Diane Kruger). Then it gets weird. Review here. (Streaming on The Criterion Channel)

Pavements: This offbeat pseudo-biopic of Stephen Malkmus and the too-cool-for-school band he co-founded, which went on to become the epitome of ’90s indie rock, weaves real footage of the band with scenes from an ostensible Hollywood production starring Joe Keery. Alex Ross Perry’s experimental, enigmatic approach is perfectly appropriate for a man and a band that always resisted categorization and exploitation. Full review here. (Streaming on MUBI.)

Earthlings: Portland filmmaker Steven Doughton (Buoy) brought his humanistic eye to this tale, based on a story by Jonathan Raymond, about a pair of Mexican-American day laborers hired by a wealthy divorcee who end up sticking around for his dinner party that evening. Years in gestation, the film is finally available. Interview with Doughton here. (Available to rent/buy on Amazon.)

Repertory

Friday 7/11

• Cecil B. Demented [2000] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Escape from New York [1981] (Cinemagic, through 7/13, also 7/15)
• Grease [1978] (Kiggins Theatre)
• The Lord Protector [1996] (Cinemagic, on VHS)
• The Professional [1994] (Cinema 21, also 7/12)
• Ran [1985] (Cinema 21, through 7/14, also 7/16)
• Steel Magnolias [1989] (Living Room Theaters, through 7/17)
• Summer of Soul [2021] (Salem Cinema, through 7/17)

Saturday 7/12

• Criss Cross [1948] (Cinema 21)
• Escape from L.A. [1996] (Cinemagic, through 7/14)
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off [1986] (Cinemagic, also 7/14 & 7/15)
• Jane Austen Wrecked My Life [2025] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Network [1976] (Salem Cinema, also 7/15)

Sunday 7/13

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest [1975] (Salem Cinema, also 7/16)
• WALL-E [2008] (Clinton St. Theater)

Monday 7/14

• Body and Soul [1947] (Kiggins Theatre)
• Holy Trinity [2019] (Clinton St. Theater)
• Madonna: Truth or Dare [1991] (Hollywood Theatre)

Tuesday 7/15

• Heavy Metal [1981] (Hollywood Theatre, on 35mm)
• Trailermania! (Clinton St. Theater)

Wednesday 7/16

• Blazing Saddles [1974] (Hollywood Theatre, on 35mm)
• Quilombo [1984] (Clinton St. Theater)

Thursday 7/17

• All About My Mother [1999] (Tomorrow Theater)
• The Princess Bride [1984] (Hollywood Theatre)
• Prospect [2018] (Clinton St. Theater)