After the Hunt, 2025.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino.
Starring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny, Lio Mehiel, David Leiber, Thaddea Graham, Will Price, Christine Dye, Lailani Olan, and Nora Garrett.
SYNOPSIS:
A college professor finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star pupil levels an accusation against one of her colleagues, and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come to light.
As a Yale University soirée, director Luca Guadagnino (working from a screenplay by first-timer Nora Garrett) uses the setting as an opportunity to lay out the sociopolitical beliefs of each major player, all tied to philosophical discourse. Among this group is a supporting character student who voices a barrage of troubling thoughts that run counter to the status quo. The conversation never gets too heated or concerning, but what transpires throughout After the Hunt and what the filmmakers seem to believe they are getting at is nothing short of a misfire under the impression that it’s more intelligent than it actually is.
It also comes with some deeply odd messages for these times, making the film feel as if it were written by a whiny, entitled student or one of the self-victimizing men. Luca Guadagnino and Nora Garrett likely believe this is complex, and in some respects, it does delve into thought-provoking territory, but at the expense of seemingly harboring a misogynistic attitude, with a cynical, sometimes justified yet most of the time baffling hatred for younger generations.
At the end of that soirée, chatty, nice-guy professor, Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield) opts to walk gay Black student Maggie Resnick (is this odd surname supposed to be an awkward and pointless riff on Reznor, as in the film’s always reliable composer Trent Reznor, once again working with longtime collaborator Atticus Ross and salvaging the hit-and-miss Luca Guadagnino from disaster?) home. The next day, Maggie gets in touch with her philosophy professor, Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts), to confide that the night took a turn and sexual barriers were crossed. An outspoken advocate for female empowerment, Alma finds herself in a hypocritical pickle, choosing to believe Maggie while also playing down the situation and asserting that if she does come forward with allegations, it will only hurt her academic career as future employers will not want to work with someone who could, at any moment, get them canceled not necessarily for something drastic but also the honesty of mistakes in this walking-on-eggshells climate.
After the Hunt wants to tackle the sometimes questionable sensitivity of younger generations, while also not shying away from Alma’s selfishness and the fact that, when it comes to action, she isn’t what she claims to stand for or support. Meanwhile, Hank is livid and desperate, explaining to Alma that he believes Maggie was already cheating on her partner, committing plagiarism for her dissertation (one that Alma sees promise in), and that she was reciprocating his flirty nature, implying that this is a coordinated attack from a silver-spooned, mediocre student to leapfrog ahead of her peers. Also controversial is Alma’s pretentious partner, Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg), who throws out that Maggie has been secretly crushing on Alma, craving intimacy as an extension of the academic flattery she receives.
At an overly long 138 minutes, this sees the filmmakers extending this premise well beyond credibility into a tasteless climax of resolutions that all but confirm Luca Guadagnino thought this was appropriate material for some psychological Challengers nuttiness. It isn’t, though, as the script takes this material deadly seriously, as if it’s destined to be a provocative, great text on the sociopolitical flashings of old and new generations. This is a film so far removed from the sexual assault that, in theory, should be the center of the story (it’s quite appalling how often the narrative sidelines Maggie to focus on Alma either pushing back or psychologically unraveling, with medical complications to boot), all in favor of using that abuse is a way in to stick it to Generation Z. This is a take coming from someone who loves when a filmmaker isn’t afraid to knock performative liberals or outrage culture down a peg.
Unsurprisingly, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross understood the assignment, with discordant arrangements capturing the haziness of the inner conflict each of these characters is working through. As for the three leads, they all deliver scintillating performances in service of a film that is simultaneously compelling yet also seems determined to take its approach of tackling both sides of sociopolitical generations into alarming, strange directions that undermine any profound message that could have been conveyed. To make matters worse, After the Hunt often feels as if it’s going in circles, contextualizing the same detail about characters in different scenes. You can’t help but feel there is something here among the rambling nature, while also having the disappointing hunch that it isn’t going to stick the landing with the several topical talking points it brings to the hunt.
In theory (sorry to say that again, but it’s a statement that applies to much about this misguided experience), a spiky film posing questions about when the desire for accountability and justice transitions into a bridge too far vengeance sounds blistering. At times, it is whenever the film allows Julia Roberts and Ayo Edibiri to exchange heated words. However, it’s only using that dynamic to reach a nihilistic conclusion not only about Alma (who does become aware that part of her is rotten), but also about Maggie’s character. After the Hunt, the director is uncomfortably fascinated with the worst in these people, which is the second most shocking aspect about a movie failing to handle heavy topics effectively. The most shocking part about it is that a woman wrote it.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
