{"id":27707,"date":"2025-10-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=27707"},"modified":"2025-10-08T17:08:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T00:08:14","slug":"review-after-the-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/review-after-the-hunt\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: After the Hunt<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Perhaps as implied by its title, After the Hunt<\/em> is far less concerned with its inciting incident\u2014the sexual assault of a Yale PhD student by a professor that may or may not have happened\u2014than by what follows. Luca Guadagnino\u2019s psychological drama spends its energies on the aftermath of what happened and its effects on its three central characters, but the force of its ire isn\u2019t directed at the possible sexual assault itself or the potential of a false accusation. Instead, he seems most aggrieved by the students\u2019 sensitivities and their coddled existence. For a filmmaker who just last year made a film imbued with youthful energy<\/a>, After the Hunt<\/em> feels like a 140-minute rant from some insufferable dude at a party about kids these days. I wouldn\u2019t begrudge Guadagnino that sentiment. But it feels like maybe how easily offended twenty-somethings are shouldn\u2019t be the worst thing that happens in a movie that focuses on an act of violence and violation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First-time screenwriter Nora Garrett centers her script on the perspective of Alma (Julia Roberts), an adjunct philosophy professor at the Ivy League school who is angling for tenure alongside close friend Hank (Andrew Garfield). Alma and her psychoanalyst husband, Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg), host a party attended by faculty and students alike at their well-appointed apartment, where the conversation includes words like \u201cteleological\u201d and one partygoer bemoans the state of the world if you\u2019re a straight, cis white guy, causing Alma and her favorite student \u2014 black, queer woman Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) \u2014 to debate the merits of his embarrassingly terrible argument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the party winds down, Hank and Maggie leave together, and Alma glimpses their mutual exit through her peephole. After missing class, Maggie later shows up on Alma\u2019s doorstep, saying that Hank \u201ccrossed a line\u201d after asking to come up for a drink. Alma is caught between trusting a woman\u2019s claims that she was raped and believing that someone she trusts is capable of such an act. The scandal explodes on campus and beyond, with ramifications that grow ever more complex for everyone involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That complexity is part of After the Hunt<\/em>\u2019s downfall. Garrett\u2019s screenplay is doing a lot\u2014too much. It\u2019s less concerned with developing its hastily sketched characters or giving them motivations that make even a little sense, and more interested in just throwing everything at the wall. There\u2019s a weird fascination with the naked body of Maggie\u2019s nonbinary partner, who exists merely for the camera to gawk at and for the inevitable conversation about their pronouns. In a tertiary role as Alma\u2019s husband, Stuhlbarg\u2019s Frederik is especially thinly drawn; for most of the first half of the movie, he\u2019s seen as easygoing and charming, but a scene midway through paints him as monstrous. By the end, he\u2019s back to being After the Hunt<\/em>\u2019s most sympathetic person in a tender scene near its finale. Yet even with more screentime, its three main characters played by Roberts, Edebiri, and Garfield are just as opaque in their motivations and machinations. After the Hunt<\/em> doesn\u2019t consider these characters as real people, just as means to make a lecture about cancel culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Power and money are also part of the game that\u2019s being played; there\u2019s the imbalance between professors and students, as well as the ability of an accusation to ruin a career. However, there\u2019s more at play, since Maggie\u2019s unseen parents are major donors to the school. There\u2019s also the unexplained and uncommented-on wealth of Alma and Frederik. Adjunct professors are notoriously underpaid, and while psychoanalysts make very good money, do they earn enough to own a huge place in New Haven filled with art and a second apartment kept just for Alma to use as an office and crash pad? Yet this is a Guadagnino picture, and elegance and affluence are de rigueur rather than something that needs to make any sense in the real world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, as to be expected for a film set in academia, After the Hunt<\/em>\u2019s costumes aren\u2019t as glamorous as what audiences usually get in a Guadagnino movie. Roberts\u2019 Alma is the exception, but even she wears what boils down to a uniform for most of the film: white shirt and jeans with the same necklace, loafers, and tote bag, with a rotating cast of blazers. There are some lines of dialogue that get barks of laughter, but its funniest joke might be putting real-life style icon Chlo\u00eb Sevigny in drab, dowdy suits in a supporting role as a psychiatrist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At times, After the Hunt<\/em> seems to aim for the cutting, cruel thrills of films like Closer<\/em> and Notes on a Scandal <\/em>(or Guadagnino\u2019s own A Bigger Splash<\/em> and Challengers<\/em>), but it lacks their wit and bite. There\u2019s not much to sink your teeth into other than a marvelously layered performance by Roberts. She\u2019s alternately sharp and soft, with a cool exterior guarding a passionate past. This is a pretty messy, kinda dumb movie that\u2019s ostensibly about smart people, but it doesn\u2019t leave the audience with anything more worthwhile than a desire to buy a tweed blazer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C-<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

“After the Hunt” is in theaters this weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n