A stellar cast, an acclaimed filmmaker, and a hot button topic.
You’d think that such attributes would make for a well-done and timely moviegoing experience. You’d think. AFTER THE HUNT can claim all those things as it stars Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri, is directed by Luca Guadagnino (CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, CHALLENGERS), and has a script by Nora Garrett whose plot concerns a “He Said/She Said” assault controversy. And yet none of it gels. Instead, it’s heavy-handed, pretentious, stridently acted, and irritating as hell. After 15 minutes with these characters, I didn’t want to spend another minute with any of them. And the film drags on for another two hours and four minutes. I like all these talented people, but this is a major misfire from all of them.
The problem starts with its very first scene. We’re placed smack dab in the middle of a tony party filled with academic types who have nothing better to do than to argue about philosophy, Nietzsche, and free will. Really? Haven’t any of these people watched a good movie or enjoyed a new restaurant? Participating in the pompous discussion are Alma, a Yale Professor approaching tenure (Roberts), her flirty colleague Hank (Garfield), and whiz kid student Maggie (Edebiri). They all throw banter and pithy quips about with snide relish, and they’re all smoking and drinking like it’s the 60s too. Meanwhile, Alma’s psychiatrist husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) flits about, offering bon mots with the coffee and dessert he’s serving. None of these folks seem like people. Not even characters. More like conceits.
It’s clear that Alma and Hank have a sexual history together, especially when Frederik cannot help but make a few asides about their cosey canoodling on the couch. It also is apparent to the students at the party that Hank has a reputation as a teacher willing to cross the line when it comes to comely students. Thus, it’s no surprise that after he shows Maggie home after the party, he gets into some trouble with her. Very serious trouble as she insinuates to Alma the next day that she was raped. Alma’s reaction to it is very mixed, as if she has skeletons in her own closet that may cloud her judgment. Or perhaps it’s just that she and Hank are buddies. From here, the rest of the film becomes a pseudo-detective story as Alma tries to figure out where the truth lies.
That isn’t a bad premise for a mystery, but at almost every point in the story, something gets demonstrably in the way of the tropes necessary for it to play. Alma is supposed to be wildly popular with her students, yet she comes off morose and bitter at almost every turn. She’s also dealing with some physical ailments that drop her onto the floor with regularity. Maggie is supposed to be a brilliant student, but nothing we see of her supports that she’s more than a rich, immature brat. Hank is supposed to be the campus Lothario, but Garfield makes him so bug-eyed and twitchy, you wouldn’t want to ask him for directions let alone engage in banter with him. And Stuhlbarg, who often steals films without even trying, tries so hard to be adorably eccentric here that you might just think his character should be seeing a psychiatrist rather than being one.
Throughout the film, the dialogue feels phony as characters either continue to philosophize instead of conversing, act out instead of interacting, and little of it truly moves the mystery forward. We learn more about Alma and Hank’s history than what really happened between Hank and Maggie. And underlining all the mistakes in the script are Guadagnino’s penchant for cutting to provocative close-ups as metaphors. Black nail polish, various shoe styles, a pot of cassolette – they’re all given a lot of emphasis. Weren’t the hallowed halls of Yale artsy-fartsy enough? Then there are moments so inexplicable, I’m still unsure of why they’re there in the film. At one point, Maggie comes over to Alma and Frederik’s to have a ‘heart-to-heart’ with her, but as they two women are trying to bond, Frederik insists on banging in and out of the kitchen where they’re talking, making so much noise in a passive/aggressive way, it defies explanation.
I think what occurred here is that everyone involved thought they were making an important and provocative film, one that stirs the pot like those such as WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF, PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN, and TAR. But along the way, everyone’s enthusiasm got the best of them. Every element is so grandiose that the drama turns into almost comical melodrama. This is a film where even the score by the vaulted, award-winning Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross feels overwrought. It all makes for one gigantically irritating sit and one of 2025’s most disappointing films.
