‘Sorry/Not Sorry’ Review: Louis C.K.’s Misconduct Scandal Gets a Too-Tame Documentary Treatment
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Some things really never change, do they? In August 2022, Showtime announced plans to release an in-production documentary from filmmaker Caroline Suh that would follow the sexual misconduct allegations made against comedian Louis C.K. (who admitted to said sexual misconduct allegations, at least after a New York Times expose was published in 2017) that would also “focus on reflecting on the five years since the allegations came to light at the start of the #MeToo movement.”
At the time, Showtime CEO, Paramount+ chief content officer, and Paramount TV head of scripted originals David Nevins noted that C.K. is “a great, great comedian who has come back in his own way,” a statement that seemed to quite succinctly encapsulate why Suh’s documentary needed to be made. Two months later, Nevins was out at Showtime. And eight months after that, Showtime dropped Suh’s documentary.
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But perhaps Suh should have opted to turn her camera and attention on whatever happened there, because while her film (now co-directed by Cara Mones and officially titled “Sorry/Not Sorry”), which arrives at this year’s TIFF in search of new distribution, is a competent enough tick-tock of the events surrounding C.K.’s rise and fall (and rise again), it offers little new information to anyone even passingly familiar with the story. Instead, Suh and Mones — with assistance from the three NYT journalists who wrote the original story, Melena Ryzik, Cara Buckley, and Jodi Kantor — offer a rehash of the C.K. story, complete with talking heads, archival footage, and a straightforward timeline, one that asks insightful questions and then fails to answer them.
Per the film’s official press materials, “Sorry/Not Sorry” follows the filmmakers as they “raise questions about sex and power in the workplace, who gets to take the stage, and the role the public plays in these stories at large.” Certainly, Suh and Mones raise those questions, but the mixed bag of answers they garner are not further focused into a crisper thesis, and the film concludes just as it seems it might be pushing forward into more compelling territory.
Chopped up into chapters with dead-on titles like “Open Secret” and “Comeback,” “Sorry/Not Sorry” seems to suffer from biting off way more than a single, wide-spanning documentary could ever ably chew. Suh and Mones thread the film with archival material — C.K. standup, C.K. television series, C.K. appearances — to contextualize the allure of C.K. before winding their way into the whispers about his sexual proclivities and bad behavior, before the NYT expose hits and…well, mostly gives C.K. a chance to admit his misconduct, promise to do better, go away for a bit, and then remerge for a glorious comeback. Even if you don’t know this story, you know this story.
Which is a tone Suh and Mones often try to strike, as they attempt to reckon with the greater forces that allowed C.K. to launch a comeback after — quite crucially — initially admitting he did indeed masturbate in front of multiple women without their consent. In one clip, Joe Rogan (of course) muses that such an act is like, not a crime or whatever (it is), which should have set the film off in new directions. It doesn’t, and for all the many great questions raised, damningly few answers are offered. It would be inoffensive if it wasn’t so actually offensive in its wishy-washy nature.
The film does benefit from the array of talking heads Suh and Mones assembled, including accusers like Jen Kirkman (whose own experiences both with C.K. and her later semi “outing” of him could inspire its own film) and Abby Schachner (who, likewise, should have an entire project devoted simply to her). Comedian Megan Koester, who wrote a revelatory piece about the accusations leveled against C.K. by a pair of female comedians, emerges as the documentary’s true hero, while critics like Wesley Morris and Alison Herman provide even-handed appraisals of the scandal and the way it played out in the media.
Also on offer: Michael Ian Black and Michael Schur, who allow the film to get as close to a genuine point of view as possible. Both of the comedians have their own perspective on the scandal and its “reckoning” — Black and C.K. didn’t work together, but are certainly familiar with each other; Schur speaks at length about casting the rising star on his “Parks and Recreation” — that involves considering their own part in it, and thus the wider part of the entertainment world at large. Their ruminations are messy, personal, and complicated, but there’s an honesty and a freshness to that struggle. The rest of “Sorry/Not Sorry” could have stood to take similar risks. Not everything has an answer, but the time for asking more than just questions has long since passed.
Grade: C+
“Sorry/Not Sorry” premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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