“After The Hunt” Review
Director: Luca Guadagnino Screenwriter: Nora Garrett Cast: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny Distributor: Amazon MGM Studios Running Time: 139 min. MPAA: R
Director Luca Guadagnino usually finds something mesmerizing to explore in his films, but he hits a familiar wall with After the Hunt. As so many filmmakers try to highlight the aftermath of the #MeToo movement, there’s a sense that it’s a topic too soon, given how little is addressed. Most films seem to stew on how the calling out of sexual predators has bred a dividing line between an older generation that has accepted the darkness and the next generation being unsatisfied with unanswered crimes. Rather than dissect this cultural circus, Guadagnino merely marvels at the chaos that makes for great drama, yet lacks meaningful commentary.
There’s an opportunity that feels squandered in how the film depicts three generations and how they deal with the cultural fallout of abused power dynamics. Julia Roberts portrays Professor Alma Imhoff as an older woman who surrounds herself with fellow academic elders who spend their gatherings bitching about the coddling of the student body. Although Alma is highly regarded enough to hold her tongue, her Millennial colleague, Hank (Andrew Garfield), is more inclined to go off about how easily offended young people are these days. Watching from the corner is the younger student, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), mostly keeping her mouth shut lest the more accredited folks in the room shove their degrees down her throat as an excuse to be cruel. That said, she won’t shy away from calling out white guys bemoaning how hard it is for them in society. There are some mild fireworks in their conversations, with a cruelty lurking under their decorum.
Alma’s loyalties to staff and students are put to the ultimate test when Maggie confesses to her that Hank raped her. While Maggie is reluctant to divulge many details for fear she won’t be taken seriously, Hank pleads his case to Alma, hoping she’ll take his side. Given that Alma had a history of denying her being raped, Hank’s seeking of allegiance is not entirely unfounded, even if that part of Alma’s past is one she would rather bury. Torn between an accused friend and a raped pupil, Alma finds herself becoming more bitterly frustrated with the situation, finding little comfort from her mildly understanding yet mostly distant husband (Michael Stuhlbarg).
There’s plenty of relevant social material to work with here, and some juicy roles for the accomplished trio to sink their teeth into with the vicious drama. But Guadagnino’s film only seems to gawk rather than build on the material, always seeking the next poignant exchange rather than what else there is to explore. The result is a film that feels more like vignettes of heated debates instead of diving deeper into the problems with the generational divide and unfair justice for abused women.
One of the best scenes between Roberts and Edebiri is when they discuss the case after dinner, with Maggie seeking justice and Alma bluntly grounding the student about the reality of how far her revenge can go. The scene is broken up, however, by scenes of Stuhlbarg continually passing through the room to finish the dishes, with his music blaring in the background. Like past Guadagnino films, Reznor and Ross add their aggressive and anxiety-inducing score to the mix, but it doesn’t feel as evocative this time around. While the Reznor-Ross music of Challengers felt like another welcome character in the room, these melodies don’t add much to the conversations, which already feel like a bravado of buzzwords plucked from all-too-familiar opinion columns of entitled generations.
While After the Hunt graces a vital topic of uneven power dynamics in academia, all it can do is spin its wheels on the subject matter with decent drama until it climaxes with Julia Roberts being exhausted by it all. Luca Guadagnino frames this clash between Gen-X, Millennials, and Gen-Z without much momentum and skates the line of becoming a pedantic, buzzword-laced political cartoon, more content to marvel at the messy aftermath of the #MeToo movement than to explore anything beyond the circus.
