Julia Roberts’ first collaboration with Luca Guadagnino is a misfire.
Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt” opens with Woody Allen styled credits, especially with the casting in alphabetical order (Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Julia Roberts, Chloe Sevigny, and Michael Stuhlbarg) and “A Child is Born” by Tony Bennett and Bill Evans playing. And before that, we hear some ticking, like things are going to get tense. Even the MGM logo is more interested in that noise than the roar.
This would be Julia Roberts’ first collaboration with Guadagnino, so you think “After the Hunt” could be another exhilarating entry for him. Think again, because it’s so well overblown with its topics of deception, cancel culture, and scandals, that it’s difficult to stay focused or know who to support.
As the film begins, we come to a party with the charismatic Yale professor Alma Imhoff (Roberts), her psychiatrist husband Frederick (Stuhlbarg), teachers, and students talking about politics, cancel culture, generation gap, and misogamy (“Freud was a Misogamist”), while the one black and gay rich student in the group-Maggie Price (Edebiri)-comes across something in Imhoff’s bathroom. It regards a past scandal, which she only takes a newspaper clipping of.
Okay, so we’re leading up to something, but if you Guadagnino fans want to see “After the Hunt,” I won’t spoil much for you.
One day, after Maggie fails to show up for class, she comes to Imhoff’s doorsteps, and tells her that her flirtatious colleague Hank Gibson (Garfield) has assaulted her after the party. When the professor and teacher have lunch to discuss the subject, he says: “Everything about it feels like a cliche.” You know he’s going to deny the allegations.
And Maggie wants Imhoff’s support when she decides to press charges against Hank, which she warns her not to do. And at the same time, Imhoff struggles to keep her past a secret, which Maggie knows. So, the rest of the film has these two women getting at each other’s throats, but it’s too skittish to even take the genre up a notch.
Roberts gives an exceptional performance as the professor, who has her own demons while trying to deal with another person’s. And I admire the passion and poetry inside Stuhlbarg, who reminds me of his speech in “Call Me By Your Name.” These two performances and the opening credits are the bright spots of “After the Hunt,” but the rest is too cynical and self-indulging for us to be involved.
Sexual harassment or assault is very serious in any school or workplace, but the movie doesn’t delve deep into the subject matter. It has Roberts and Edebiri playing women of those circumstances, but it doesn’t use them in the right sense. It’s all by the numbers, and it never really goes anywhere.
If I’m seeing “After the Hunt” the wrong way, then I’m sorry. I still can’t open my mind to its sense of direction.
The scene about the talk on cancel culture and generations sounds promising, but I’m not really seeing the poetic values or satire of the very nature of those elements. I’m just seeing the actors talking about them, but never fully examining them.
If Guadagnino was trying to explore the subject matter, then he doesn’t do it very well in his own light. If he’s trying to make it look and feel like a Woody Allen movie with the credits and choice of music, then he might be on to something. And if he has a terrific cast, then he should use them wisely.
I’m not really sure what the whole point of “After the Hunt” is. I’ve tried to reason with it and acknowledge the nature of it, but I’m not reading between the lines. Guadagnino is a brilliant filmmaker, but this is one of his weakest films.
In Select Theaters This Friday
Expands October 17
