SORRY/NOT SORRY - Mark Reviews Movies

Sorry/Not Sorry, Greenwich Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 11, 2024

The comedy of Louis C.K., which often pushed (and, one has to imagine, still pushes) the boundaries of tastefulness, depended on one vital thing: It was okay for C.K. to joke about certain things because he presented himself as a basically decent person, grappling with thoughts and realities that were indecent. The best comedians make a pact with the audience, either explicitly or implicitly, that there's some honesty beneath both the jokes and the person making those jokes. When it was revealed that C.K. engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior with at least five different women and the comedian admitted to those action, he broke that fundamental contract with the audience.

It's as simple as that. It's why many gave up on C.K.'s comedy, because, in addition to not wanting to support someone who would act in such a way, he betrayed that basic degree of honesty. It's one thing for a comic to repeatedly joke about masturbation and conflicting thoughts about women. It's another to find out that the same comedian performed that sexual act on himself in front of women—sometimes without consent and others with obvious confusion, embarrassment, and fear of professional retaliation.

It's as simple as that, too, and Sorry/Not Sorry makes that case clear. Directors Cara Mones and Caroline Suh's documentary also examines how C.K. could do this for years and how, despite being perceived in certain circles as an example of "cancel culture" at work, the man still has an audience, is still performing, and is still making money, despite never directly apologizing for behaving in that way.

The film gives us multiple sides of the story, including people who still support C.K., but it's rightly skeptical of the comic and his supposed redemption of comeback in recent years. The comedian might have cleared things up if he agreed to appear in or at least make some kind of statement about the project, but he didn't. In a clip from one of his stand-up specials following his admission and the public reaction to it, C.K. bluntly says that he's finished talking about what he did and the resulting controversy. If some audio and video footage of him on stage telling his side and joking about what happened, it's difficult to determine if he actually started talking about the subject within his comedy in the first place.

Mones and Suh break down the story, beginning with C.K.'s rise through the comedy world, which made him one of the most popular and respected comedians of his or any time. A show was basically a guaranteed sell-out, leading to multiple deals for recorded specials. He was making appearances on television and in movies as an actor, and C.K. became a pretty powerful producer and creator of television on his own. Just before the scandal became very public, he had a movie, which he wrote and directed and starred in, ready to be released after some festival attention.

Then, the New York Times released its report, corroborated by four named and one anonymous woman. C.K. canceled talk show appearances. Networks and streaming services dropped his TV projects and stand-up specials, and the movie was shelved.

Before that event, though, there's another side to C.K.'s story. It's one of rumors that soon became an open secret in the world of comedy, hinted at online and in news articles and during a podcast created by comic Jen Kirkman. Everybody knew, suspected, heard of others' suspicions, and, for the most part, said and did nothing about it.

The biggest and most open question left here is why that was. Kirkman and Abby Schachner, another comedian who went public about C.K.'s actions toward her, know part of the reason. By the time the rumors started gaining traction, C.K. was one of the most powerful and influential comedians—if not the most—in the business. To say anything definitive might be to risk professional backlash. Those two comics have good reason to believe that has happened to them, if reaction from C.K.'s fans—both everyday people and other comedians—is any indication.

Megan Koester, a writer and comedian, knows it almost for certain, since she was publicly questioning people about C.K. while his behavior was still in the rumor phase, leading the newly appointed head of a comedy festival to tell her to stop. As a potent side note, the guy was new to his job because the last one was removed for being, as Koester puts it, "a sex pest." In a couple of archival interviews with or about C.K., by the way, the main interviewers would later have their sexually inappropriate behavior revealed, and with that in mind, how can anyone question this as a larger problem than just a few high-profile cases?

Still, people do continue to question it, as well as the motives and actions—or supposed inaction, a view that completely negates what these women experienced and feared with, given the continued support of the comedian, justification—of C.K.'s accusers. Fans and prominent people in the business are quick to give the comedian the benefit of the doubt that he paid his personal and professional dues.

That doubt, though, has names—women who simply want to be believed, be heard, have their experiences be seen with even a bit of empathy, and hear C.K. say something that doesn't evade an apology, contradict what he admitted to, or transform himself into the victim. Sorry/Not Sorry may present this case from multiple and conflicting perspectives, but it's righteously frustrated and cynical about some people's inability to learn what should be very simple lessons.

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