Babes - Lily Rader - Can I Make It Up To You 〈SAFE〉

Then, Rader delivers the line that gives the short its emotional core:

“Can I make it up to you?”

In that single gesture, Rader communicates everything: I am not asking you to fix me. I am not asking for forgiveness right now. I am asking for permission to try. babes - lily rader - can i make it up to you

Lily Rader’s poignant short film Babes captures that exact emotional bruise in its stunning centerpiece scene, “Can I Make It Up to You.”

What makes “Can I Make It Up to You” so resonant is how it subverts the typical “apology scene” in queer cinema. We’re used to grand gestures—rain-soaked confessions, airport sprints, mixtapes left on windshields. Rader rejects all of that. Then, Rader delivers the line that gives the

Her voice cracks on the word “up.” It’s not a question asked from a position of power or easy reconciliation. It’s a question asked from the floor—metaphorically and, eventually, literally. She slides off the tub’s edge onto the cold tile, looking up at Schmidt’s character.

On paper, it’s a cliché. It’s what you say when you break a borrowed sweater or forget an anniversary. But Rader’s delivery turns it into a prayer. Lily Rader’s poignant short film Babes captures that

Rader has said in interviews that the scene was improvised after eight takes of the written dialogue. “The written version had her apologizing for specific things,” she noted in a 2023 Q&A. “But in the moment, I realized the specifics didn’t matter. What mattered was the desire to make it right, even when you know you probably can’t.”