After The Hunt (15)

Philosophy professor Alma Imhoff stands on the precipice of securing tenure at Yale University after years of dedicated service. Chaos erupts on campus when PhD student Maggie Price, who has a crush on Alma, claims another teacher, Hank Gibson, assaulted her after a boozy night at Alma's home. Caught between defending her good friend Hank, publicly supporting Maggie and protecting her reputation among the faculty to secure that long-promised tenure, Alma is potential collateral damage.

LondonNet Film Review

After The Hunt (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Director Luca Guadagnino extends the battle of the sexes from his hard-hitting tennis drama Challengers to this slow-burning psychological thriller written by Nora Garrett, which explores post-Me Too cancel culture at an Ivy League American university where a student levels damning accusations against a member of the teaching faculty. In one heated exchange between Julia Roberts’ professor and Ayo Edebiri’s accusing student, the educator cautions her protegee that not everything in life is supposed to make you feel comfortable, like a warm bath. Discomfort is a necessary part of self-development and understanding…

This is the key message of Guadagnino’s provocative and overlong sermon, which succeeds in making us feel uncomfortable about the flawed characters and their responses to reported abuse or a potential false allegation from a student whose PhD thesis shows evidence of plagiarism. The imbalance of power seesaws as screenwriter Garrett stacks one contrivance atop another and leaves important questions unanswered. Likeability eludes most characters and a powerful performance from Roberts confidently paints in shades of moral grey to add complexity of this incendiary conversation piece. Guadagnino rarely exercises brevity and After The Hunt is no exception, extending the learning well beyond two hours without appreciable additional reward for the investment.

Philosophy professor Alma Imhoff (Roberts) stands on the precipice of securing tenure at Yale University after years of dedicated service. She enjoys a privileged life with psychiatrist husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) and enjoys a close bond with her departmental colleague, Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield), who openly flirts with Alma and pupils. Chaos erupts on campus when PhD student Maggie Price (Edebiri), who has a crush on Alma, claims Hank assaulted her after a boozy night at Alma’s home.

Caught between defending her good friend Hank, publicly supporting Maggie and protecting her reputation among the rest of the faculty to secure that long-promised tenure, Alma is potential collateral damage as the reliability of witnesses is called into question. The professor exercises tact and restraint as a media frenzy threatens to scorch Yale but her reluctance to openly share feelings, or her past, only adds fuel to the firestorm. “Misconstruing my need for privacy as having something to hide would be a mistake,” she politely warns her colleague, student counsellor and psychologist Dr Kim Sayers (Chloe Sevigny), who is the gatekeeper of privileged secrets that could destroy lives.

After The Hunt taps into timely concerns about transgressions of power and influence and intensifies animated debate around the automatic presumption of belief for every individual who claims to be the victim of sexual misconduct. While Garrett’s script is adept at posing gnarly questions, it’s less sure-footed with satisfying answers. Edebiri and Garfield offer strong support to Roberts, leading us down repeated dead ends of a moral maze with no neat and tidy solution.

– Jo Planter