Luca Guadagnino is known for his provocative fixation on sensuality, desire and obsession, and with this movie he has amassed a compelling ensemble led by Julia Roberts who is given her most charged role in years.
Roberts plays Alma Imhoff, a highly regarded philosophy professor at Yale University. She is a complex woman of stature in a male-dominated academia. From one angle she is an intimidating and impenetrable intellectual who relishes being the centre of attention. From another angle she’s a troubled woman concealing her personal pain and bottling up anything resembling emotions.
AFTER THE HUNT is a technically savvy and narratively enthralling drama, anchored by award-worthy performances from Roberts, Garfield, and Stuhlbarg, while offering a bold take on a sensitive subject that sparked a cultural flashpoint.
The ending leaves us questioning some things more than wrestling with them. I loved this intelligent and guileless aspect that’s satisfyingly both riveting and challenging. There is an intentional ambiguity woven throughout the story that forces us to reckon with our own perceptions.
The Director and screenwriter Nora Garrett make Alma their focus, following the characters as she navigates the #MeToo minefield between the untrustworthy Maggie and the boozy, flirtatious Hank. As they do, the filmmakers sling us into a thematic whirlwind of power dynamics, victimisation, privilege, academia, support systems, cultural shifts, and generational divides.
Their storytelling strikes a peculiar balance between empathising with Ivy League elites and excoriating them. But make no mistake, the film’s overall tenor ranges from morally murky to downright dastardly, with only a few measures of grace sprinkled in.
Alma’s tightly controlled world is shaken after her student Maggie Resnick (Ayo Edebiri) accuses Alma’s colleague and close friend Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault. The alleged transgression happened after a dinner party at Alma’s home. Hank admits to Alma that he walked Maggie home and even went up to her apartment for a nightcap, but denies fiercely that he assaulted Maggie.
There are dubious layers to Alma and Hank’s relationship that raises a number of questions. Both are pillars in the university’s philosophy department and are the two finalists for the School’s solo tenure spot. Away from work they are uncomfortably close, to the point of kindling suspicions in Alma’s passive, yet frustrated husband Frederick (played by a perfectly tuned Michael Stuhlbarg).
Alma’s relationship with Maggie proves equally complex but for different reasons. She enjoys Maggie’s adoration and takes pride in being a mentor, but the two clash over how to handle her accusation. Alma’s views are shaped by living within the patriarchal construct, causing her to be cold and unsympathetic. Maggie shamelessly hides her real self behind various marginalised identities.
AFTER THE HUNT shines in its compelling cinematography and performances. Malik Hassan Sayeed delivers lush images perfectly attuned to the movies’ needs especially addressing the nature and force of the cancel culture that pervades today’s world.
Confronting compelling cinema.
