A Morally Uncertain Movie: Cillian Howley reviews Luca Guadagnino’s After The Hunt
“Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable.”
After the Hunt is a story of misconduct with nothing much to say. The drama serves as the latest feature by Luca Guadagnino, the Italian auteur at the helm of the sexually complicated films Call Me by Your Name and Challengers. Julia Roberts stars as a philosophy professor up for tenure at Yale, who is caught between a rock and a hard place upon the outbreak of sexual harassment scandal. Her star pupil, portrayed by Ayo Edibiri makes an accusation against another professor at the university, played by Andew Garfield. Set in 2019, After the Hunt takes place amidst the MeToo and Times Up movements.
From the opening credits, it is unclear what Guadagnino has to say about sexual impropriety. The choice of font and alphabetical cast order will provoke a sense of deja vu to any film buff familiar with classics such as Annie Hall or Manhattan - both of which are features borrowed from the work of Woody Allen. Accused of sexual abuse in 1992, Allen has long maintained his innocence. Just five years later, Allen married his ex-partner’s adoptive daughter. The homage to such a controversial director is jarring and lays the foundations for a morally uncertain movie. After all, Allen has worked quite consistently over the past three decades, despite his associated scandals. The star-studded casts he regularly assembles, and the countless accolades collected highlight the lack of consequences faced.
The film opens with Alma waking up to her husband placing her precisely prescribed medication on her bedside table with a glass of water. Health issues forced Alma to take a leave of absence from work at the university. As a result, Alma and her much younger colleague, Hank, are competing for a tenured position. A party hosted by Alma for students and teachers highlights the lack of boundaries between faculty and pupils. Hank drinks too much, bemoans an entitled generation and consistently invades the personal space of others. A drunk Hank leaves the party with Maggie, his student, the night the alleged assault takes place.
Not yet a decade on from the reckoning of MeToo, After the Hunt feels painfully outdated. Regardless of the film’s setting, the viewers find themselves stuck in 2025. The script, penned by Nora Garrett, dances around hefty topics with minimal development. The script appears quite cynical of MeToo. The ethics of power imbalances between teacher and student and the significance of intersectionality are underdiscussed elements that should inform the film’s thesis. Maggie’s identity as a black queer woman is used by the film to create a caricature of a mollycoddled and woke generation.
Since 2019, a backlash and conservative pushback against women-led movements have erupted. The far-right has gained a foothold, and Trump is president once more, making a critique of MeToo futile. Garrett laments some sort of liberal utopia which has long since evaporated. Under Trump’s second administration, institutions including Yale are under threat specifically for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.
The film’s A-List cast do their best with a poor script. Roberts is excellent as a professor spiraling out of control amidst the chaos around her. Moreover, an actor of her calibre deserves better material, especially when meaty roles for women over forty are so few and far between. Alma is consistently aloof and reserved in the drama. Once caught in the crosshairs of scandal, she retreats further into herself. This showcases an against type role for Roberts who is best known for brassy and bold roles in Pretty Woman and Erin Brockovich.
Garfield does well as the accused professor. He succeeds in making the self-adulating Hank a hard watch onscreen. Despite this, Garfield imbues his usual charm to create a believably popular academic. His aggrievance is convincing; not as that of a somewhat innocent man but as an entitled man unwilling to face accountability. In a rare dramatic performance, Edibiri is solid despite the burden of an underwritten role. The film lets Maggie down by ignoring her experience to instead focus on Alma and Hank. Indie darling Chloe Sevigny is underutilised in her role as on campus psychiatrist.
Ultimately, After the Hunt is too messy and murky to tell us anything. The film spends too long unsure of what to think and wastes two hours getting there. In its misguided reappraisal of MeToo (that comes five years too late), the film diminishes victims despite painting the picture of a clear breach in ethics by a man in a position of power.