EXCLUSIVE: In 2021, Louis C.K. released a comedy concert film on his website entitled Sorry. What did Louis C.K. have to be sorry about? Well, there’s the sexual misconduct allegations against him that came to light in a New York Times article published in 2017 – allegations he admitted were true.
But was he really sorry? When the story broke, C.K. responded by saying he was “remorseful” and acknowledged he had “hurt” people. But he never used the word “sorry.”
The documentary Sorry/Not Sorry, making its world premiere tonight at the Toronto International Film Festival, explores the aftermath of the revelations of misconduct about C.K. At first, it looked like he’d been canceled, as had other men in the entertainment industry and media who had allegedly committed acts of sexual misconduct or worse (Harvey Weinstein, Les Moonves, Brett Ratner, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer and more). But within a year, C.K. was back out on the comedy hustings, doing his thing. We have your first look at the film directed by Caroline Suh and Cara Mones in the clip above.
“Sorry/Not Sorry dwells strongly on the period from 2015 to 2017 when blogs and podcasts were increasingly dropping innuendo over C.K.’s toxic actions,” according to a description of the film written by TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers. “Despite growing rumors, C.K. wrote and directed the 2017 film I Love You, Daddy about a middle-aged film director pursuing a teenage girl. The documentary raises questions over who knew what when, and how things might have gone differently.
“Sorry/Not Sorry includes extensive interviews with women who were prominent in raising accusations against C.K. and paid a hefty cost for doing so. Suh and Mones lean into complexities and ask pointed questions to all the surrounding players about their own complicity. Sorry/Not Sorry holds up a mirror to viewers and forces us to re-examine our own belief systems.”
In an interview, Suh said she was a fan of the comedian’s work before the scandal broke and initially asked herself what punishment would be proper in light of his behavior. Should his career be over? But when C.K. returned to the comedy stage in 2018, she said, “I began to wonder, how come we rarely hear the full stories of the women who came forward? From that point on I really wanted to make a film that explored these questions, and when The New York Times asked me if there was anything I might want to collaborate with them on, Louis’ story was top of mind.”
Mones came on board the project after Suh. “After talking to Caroline about her hopes for the film, I learned that there was so much missing from the public conversations around Louis C.K.,” she noted in an interview. “I had known very little about the women who had spoken up about Louis’ behavior, and I certainly knew nothing about their treatment in the wake of speaking out. I was disappointed with myself that I hadn’t even considered the impact of coming forward. Now six years after The New York Times story broke and Louis C.K. is selling out venues internationally, this story remains as relevant as ever.”
Sorry/Not Sorry is a production of the New York Times. CAA is handling sales.
In the clip above, a variety of commentators unpack Louis C.K.’s apology/not apology.