Okay, I think I've figured out the problem with After the Hunt. This campus assault thriller from Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino, which stars Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield, came out last weekend. Despite this nice mix of star power and arthouse credentials, it couldn't even trouble the top six at the UK box office, placing behind Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, which is already available to watch at home. Why is no one going to see After the Hunt? Probably because critics in Venice and at subsequent film festivals have enjoyed ripping the piss out of its haughty, provocative, messy display of post-#MeToo sociology. It's currently sitting at a 40 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes, a miserable fate it shares with Katherine Heigl's 27 Dresses and The Rock's The Scorpion King. And yet, I am here to tell you to go and see it. Seriously!
I saw After the Hunt a couple of weeks ago, right after Oscar frontrunner Hamnet – a double feature that did it no favours. But I still had a very good time. It may not be a "great" movie, but it is a great movie to argue about with your friends (or, as might be the case here, enemies), and we probably haven't had enough of those in recent years. It has some obvious flaws, not limited to an excruciating, cringey coda that should have been lopped off in the edit. But I think the biggest issue facing it is the heavy and prestigious cloth it has arrived swaddled in. People are walking into this movie expecting an Oscar-contending, politically astute drama. But this is a soap opera. A beautifully made soap opera, sure. But a soap opera nonetheless. Accept that, and be set free.
After the Hunt follows Alma (Roberts), a philosophy professor at Yale, who is in direct competition with her longtime colleague and friend Hank (Garfield) for tenure, a coveted position in American academia which, as an Irishman, I don't fully understand. One evening, Alma's student Maggie (Edebiri) shows up at her door, traumatised. Maggie says that Hank sexually assaulted her after a party the night prior, and that she intends to report him. Alma's response is jarring – she is clearly reluctant to believe Maggie, and interrogates her rather than consoling her. To say more about where that plotline goes would veer into spoiler territory. But Alma's subsequent actions pit all three of them against each other, revealing the grim personalities hidden under their holier-than-thou tweed-blazer veneers.
There are some other, more curious things going on, too: Alma has what can only be described as a "Movie Illness", one that causes her to collapse at convenient times and do some other plot-moving things that I probably shouldn't tell you about. Maggie is the transracially adopted daughter of god-awfully rich parents who bankroll the university, as well as a lesbian dating a nonbinary lawyer, which is laying the whole "woke mob" vibe on a bit thick. Early on in the film, she goes to Alma's guest bathroom and snoops around in her cupboard, finding a very private and confidential letter stuck to the underside of one of the shelves – ever done that?! – which contains some pertinent information about her professor. Several moments feel like that "Old Man Yells At Cloud" meme, with Julia Roberts screaming at Maggie or another Gen-Z student about how ridiculously demanding and sensitive they are. And these aren't even close to the soapiest things that happen here.
But then there are lots of strange and riveting filmmaking choices, too. In one scene, when defending himself staunchly to Alma from the accusations, Hank angrily houses a saag paneer with naan bread and drains a beer, and it is… beguiling! In various confrontations, Guadagnino zooms in on characters' hands as they gesticulate. Elsewhere, he does some kind of Peep Show–esque POV shots, where Hank or Alma stare straight down the lens, making the viewer feel complicit in whatever the hell is going on. Michael Stuhlbarg, who was so movingly empathetic as Timothée Chalamet's dad in Call Me By Your Name, plays Alma's husband in a manner so strange that… Well, this tweet put it best: "Michael Stuhlbarg plays Julia Roberts' husband in After the Hunt but seems more like a Genie that lives in her house." Do these choices have any consequences? Your mileage may vary, but I have to admit that I was extremely dialled in for the bulk of this very long movie.
And Guadagnino knows exactly what he's doing. In an early scene, Alma goes to the dean of humanities' office to talk about the assault. He grabs two crystal glasses from the drinks cabinet, where he's got a bottle of expensive Scotch sitting out. But then he picks a bottle of Jameson out from under his desk. "I hate that Laphroaig shit," he says when Alma prods him for being cheap. "But what looks good looks good." This movie is a Laphroaig bottle filled with Jameson. Elegant and expensive on the outside, cheap and delicious on the inside. It's kind of like Guadagnino wanted to be Ryan Murphy for a day, but with the aesthetics of a 1980s Woody Allen movie. The result is a fascinating cocktail that you should absolutely try out.
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