THE STORY – A college professor finds herself at a personal and professional crossroad when a star student levels an accusation against one of her colleagues, threatening to expose a dark secret from her own past.
THE CAST – Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg & Chloë Sevigny
THE TEAM – Luca Guadagnino (Director) & Nora Garrett (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 139 Minutes
Nothing is black and white in “After the Hunt.” Well, that’s not true; the costumes are mostly monochrome, except when a character makes the bold choice to wear dark blue. Not only does this design ethos help establish a world of rigid (but upper-class) higher education, it speaks to the exacting care and attention to detail that director Luca Guadagnino brings to the film. The master filmmaker manages to make an extremely talky script utterly cinematic. Even the style of the opening credits cleverly clues viewers into the types of discussions that the film is made up of. His brilliant direction and the stellar performances, especially from Julia Roberts, make “After the Hunt” a compelling journey through a world of doubt and distrust, despite a screenplay that feels like a watered-down version of similarly probing films that have come before.
Roberts plays Alma Imhoff, a professor of philosophy at Yale who’s up for tenure, as is her colleague and friend Hank (Andrew Garfield). Alma’s star student is Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), a child of rich benefactor parents currently working on her PhD dissertation. Their collective world is shaken when Maggie accuses Hank of assault after walking her home from a party at Alma’s.
From there, the film almost entirely follows Alma, with her thoughts on her shoulder as she navigates conversations with both Hank and Maggie about the allegations, along with glimpses into her own personal struggles. Mirroring the collapse of her trusted ecosystem, her body starts betraying her as, at the same time, her troubled past comes back to haunt her. Her suppressed trauma is physicalized by ever-increasing attacks of stomach pain. Roberts, unsurprisingly, leads the film with absolute surety. This is definitely a performance from the “August: Osage County” wing of her acting library (and true actress fans will agree that that’s one of the crowning achievements of her illustrious career, if not her very best work). She’s focused, obviously hyper-intelligent, and certain of each word that passes her lips. Even in a confrontational classroom scene that could uncharitably be described as Temu Tár, Roberts chews into every syllable of academic psychoanalytical babble with a ferocity that shows that Alma will win every conversation – even when such chats don’t seem competitive. But it’s not all fierce posturing and conquered debates. When Alma faces moments of pain or disappointment, Roberts’ face shifts and molds in a way that feels uncomfortable to watch, like seeing a stranger cry in close proximity. With this performance, Roberts further proves that she’s one of our best. She and the camera are old friends who’ve known each other for decades, and Roberts knows exactly how to work with it in a way that conveys her character’s inner life, even when Alma wouldn’t want anyone to know what she’s thinking or feeling. For Roberts, it’s a high-water mark in a career of exceptional screen work.
But like any professor, Roberts is only as good as the proverbial department around her, and the rest of the ensemble delivers some of their respective best performances. Michael Stuhlbarg plays Alma’s husband, Frederik, with an air of foppish grandeur, floating through their impressive apartment like a well-educated court jester. But it’s not all tossed-off asides and funny hand gestures. Much like in Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name,” Stuhlbarg gets a fantastic final scene with Roberts, where he once again has the opportunity to deliver an instructive lesson via tender dialogue. Garfield is appropriately charming, brash, and at times, menacing. It’s a complex character to play, given the need to be both likable and a believable threat, and Garfield is up to the task. And in a small but essential role as a fellow staff member and campus psychiatrist, Chloë Sevigny is hilarious (she’s the closest thing the film has to comic relief) while not betraying her character’s obvious intelligence. As Maggie – the central character in the film’s storm of conflict – Edebiri is sympathetic and brittle, but her presence doesn’t exactly match that of the more established stars around her. This may be purposeful, given her characters’ lower position of power compared to her elder peers, but Edebiri (and, to an extent, her director, with his framing and guidance) doesn’t make this energy discrepancy into an active enough choice as a performer.
Where Guadagnino excels is in the unexpected cinematic flair he brings to the film. There are some truly transfixing close-ups of his actors staring right into the camera at moments of heightened emotion (Jonathan Demme would be proud). He makes a thematic visual choice to focus on characters’ hands as they gesticulate, accentuating their spoken dialogue. This brings focus to the idea of human hands as extensions of both care – they can comfort, caress, or provide reassuring contact – or conflict – the film has its share of slaps, grabs, and pointedly rejected contact. This smart choice helps to underscore further a story about the positive and negative effects that people’s interactions can have on one another.
Nora Garrett’s debut screenplay is a challenging one in every way. It obviously tackles a thorny subject without giving easy answers or messages. This is an admirable decision that helps audiences relate to Alma and the way she feels torn between two people for whom she cares deeply, who suddenly find themselves on opposite ends of a conflict. And yet, at the same time, it feels not quite as probing as it possibly could be, instead devolving into the kind of he-said-she-said story that’s been seen before, which the characters themselves notably wish to reject. The overly intellectual dialogue, full of philosophical jargon and heady conversational topics, is dispatched with the energy of recounting a trip to the grocery store, having the effect of making the characters feel like a parody of stuffy academia rather than a representation of one. It’s almost a laughable relief when Maggie says to Alma mid-conversation, “Can we stop being smart for a second?”
“After the Hunt” struggles to decide precisely how it wants to approach its examination of the (to reference one of Alma’s teaching topics) panopticon-like method of dealing with allegations of amorality in today’s society. But thanks to Guadagnino’s strong filmic choices, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ unnerving musical score, and striking performances, it still manages to draw audiences into its chilling, unsteady world effectively.
