‘After The Hunt’ review: Julia Roberts heads Luca Guadagnino’s problematic #MeToo drama

Dir: Luca Guadagnino. US. 2025. 138mins

There are some interesting ideas in After The Hunt, Luca Guadagnino’s star-studded #MeToo treatise; the corrupting nature of privilege, the pandemic of entitlement, toxic feminism and the ideological gulf between generations. And the Italian filmmaker knows how to make a handsome film, the lofty Ivy League spires of Yale University providing a lavish background for this tale of elitism gone sour. Ultimately, however, the film’s inflated self-importance serves to not only overwhelm but also undermine its finer points.

Bluntly heavy-handed in its approach

The film premieres out of competition in Venice and continues Guadagnino’s long relationship with the festival, which has seen four of his films play in competition including last year’s Queer. This is a far heavier affair than that florid William S Burroughs adaptation, and also lacks the light-footedness of Challengers, the emotional authenticity of Call Me By Your Name or the singular vision of Bones And All. Still Guadagnino’s fans are likely to turn out in force when the film releases in the US from October 10 and the UK from October 22; the first title in a new international distribution pact between Amazon MGM and Sony. Awards attention, particularly for performances, may also not be out of the question.

It’s 2019, and Yale philosophy professor Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) is living a charmed life. We meet her while she is hosting a party at the impressive apartment she shares with husband Frederick (Michael Stuhlbarg), during which she plays intellectual tennis with her colleague Hank (Andrew Garfield) and PHD student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri).  It’s an opening scene seemingly designed to raise the hackles; these characters are held at a deliberate distance as they engage in rapid-fire badinage about Nietzsche and Freud. Actress-turned-screenwriter Nora Garrett means for the audience to stay firmly on the sidelines of this pompous group, but failing to provide any sympathetic characters is a bold move given what comes next.

When Hank offers to walk Maggie home, we certainly know what’s coming, even if we don’t actually see it happen. But when Maggie confides in Alma about Hank’s attack, Alma fails to respond as expected. Concerned about the impact on her impending tenure, and on her own complicated history with Hank, Alma does not want to get involved. Sure, she offers words of support to Maggie, but she will not take any kind of meaningful stand.

Roberts is captivating as the conflicted Alma, who slowly begins to unravel, her own past traumas making themselves felt (the stomach ulcers which have her doubled over in pain are rather on-the-nose). She captures the uncomfortable dichotomy between Alma’s words and her actions, the hard edges of a personal ambition which comes above all else. She is a woman who fought hard in a man’s world, and doesn’t understand why the younger generations should expect to have it any other way.

This generational tension between Alma and Maggie is at the heart of the film, with neither knowing how to communicate in a way the other can truly hear. There are a lot of conversations about cultural moments, virtue ethics, trigger warnings and safe spaces that have Alma and colleague Kim (an underused Chloe Sevigny) rolling their eyes. “Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable,” snaps Alma; there’s the hint she believes that Maggie, the privileged child of wealthy university benefactors, needs a hard dose of reality.

While Maggie wants to speak her truth, Alma thinks keeping quiet is the only way to safeguard her future, to avoid being labelled a “difficult woman”. This is, of course, a resonant cultural fact, but After The Hunt is bluntly heavy-handed in its approach. There’s also a palpable Single White Female vibe to the way in which Maggie begins to emulate Alma’s dress sense, her mannerisms, which casts some doubt as to her motivations. Guadagnino may want to keep us guessing about where exactly the truth lies, but that’s a misguided approach for this kind of story.

Hank, of course, protests his innocence in the desperate, incredulous, self-justifying way that guilty men so often do, and Garfield is believable and committed in an unforgiving role that turns him into something of a cipher. Elsewhere, Stuhlbarg is great as Alma’s emasculated husband, who takes out his frustrations by playing passive aggressively loud music to rival that in After The Fall.

Cinematography is particularly notable, and not just because it brings DOP Malik Hassan Sayeed (Clockers, Eyes Wide Shut) back to the big screen after a long absence. Sayeed’s camera effectively captures the oppressive, anonymous spaces of the Yale campus (impressively recreated at London’s Shepperton Studios), and utilizes off-kilter angles to underscore Alma’s increasing detachment. Elsewhere, he frames hands, eyes, mouths in tight close-up, suggesting that our body language may betray our true motivations. Regular Guadagnino collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross turn in a fractious, uneasy score whose jazz elements recall the work of Woody Allen; a victim of cancel culture also provacatively referenced in the film’s Allenesque opening credits.

“A young black woman gets assaulted and white people figure out a way to make it all about them,” complains Maggie near the film’s end. The same can be said about After The Hunt which is, of course, directed by a white man and puts itself well before any real and valuable discussion of these deeply complex issues. While it may wish to spark debate, the stance it takes on its messaging is troubling – particularly given a stapled-on coda that seems to suggest we should be putting all of this nonsense behind us.