AFTER THE HUNT (NYFF 2025) – Review by Diane Carson
After the Hunt is ambitious but flawed
Some films promise more than they deliver to the disappointment of those who welcome weighty issues decisively tackled. Director Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt qualifies with its exceptional cast, substantive conflicts, and high profile setting, all to no avail as the film chases after a clear presentation of characters awash in acrimonious crises. The jumbled ideas are as muddled as the relationships in a film with no semblance of constructive insight into the university world or its affected individuals. Promoted in press notes as a “twisty psychological thriller,” it is, more accurately, a confused, erratic indulgence.
The setting is prestigious Yale University where Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) teaches philosophy as she awaits a professionally critical decision on being granted or rejected for tenure. Alma competes with her younger colleague Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield). His presence at her dinner parties acknowledges their close friendship, amidst a lot of suggestive nonverbal reactions and combative verbal sparring. Complicating their connection is student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) who adores Alma and challenges Hank. Glib attempts at philosophical cleverness come off as merely sophomoric dismissals. “Aristotle was a xenophobe.” “Freud was a misogynist.” Further elaboration does not ensue. No more than an add on, Alma’s husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg, in a thankless, embarrassing role) is a psychiatrist who offers fortune cookie level observations. And as the university’s psychologist Dr. Kim Sayers, the wonderful Chloë Sevigny also provides a mere afterthought in most of her scenes, save one.
The exaggerated drama begins with post dinner conversation (in fact, one upmanship showing off) at Alma and Frederik’s lovely home. An aggressively smug Hank leaves with Maggie. Accused by a distraught Maggie of “crossing the line,” Hank vociferously defends himself while Maggie wilts. This trio’s complicated involvement with each other—Maggie is Alma’s adoring student, Hank is also vying for tenure—leads to a knotty pursuit of justice versus vengeance, a commendable approach to seeking elusive truth. (See Iranian writer/director Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident for a truly brilliant interrogation of that issue.)
Meant to explore ethical choices, especially amidst conflicting assertions, the film is more concerned with dragging out the increasingly boisterous confrontations rather than any intelligent investigation of Maggie’s serious claim of sexual assault or Alma’s past issues. One absolutely ludicrous scene among several announces its absurdity with appalling staging. Late in the film, in what should be a significant, productive exchange, Alma sits at the kitchen table in serious conversation with Hank as Alma’s husband Frederik repeatedly, obnoxiously interrupts. As he enters again and again through the kitchen’s swinging door, his excessively loud music drowns out the possibility of any sentient dialogue. Frederik remains silent as he sashays in and out of the kitchen, making a huge display of entering and leaving, completely disruptive. Alma’s only comment is to “just ignore him,” attempting to divert attention from his childish display.
In another self-conscious staging, this time in a tandoori restaurant, Alma and Hank face off with their mirror images clearly reflected in the windows next to the table where they sit across from each other. The heavy-handed, metaphorical composition adds to other inelegant framings throughout the film, notably an excess of semi-focused close-ups by cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed. Equally suggestive, Alma physically suffers from a chronic illness, not unheard of in stressful situations. However, this element remains, as with other promising details, underdeveloped.
Shot primarily at England’s University of Cambridge standing in for Yale, the iconic architecture does invoke meaningly tradition and the important pursuit of knowledge. But interior scenes are occasionally much too dark in an effort, perhaps, to signal hidden agendas. Complementing that lack of subtlety, incredibly annoying piano picking and other musical interruptions distract from, rather than reinforce, content and context.
The curious title After the Hunt comes from a quotation from Otto Von Bismarck, who guided Germany’s unification and became its first chancellor (1871 to 1890). “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.” This still provocative quotation expresses valuable ideas well worth pursuing, despite After the Hunt’s bewildering attempt to depict this embattled, prestigious university world, so replete with strong personalities and professional battles, sexist politics and egotistical confidence. After the Hunt is available beginning October 17.
