Nora Garrett

Blond, poised, and enigmatic, Julia Roberts as an Ivy League professor draws the focus of After the Hunt, an academic potboiler that spends too much time on the radiant star instead of the character that sets the plot in motion. The drama explores the aftermath of a rape accusation that rocks one woman’s comfortable world. Yet its discussions of diversity, truth, and ethics end up feeling more superficial than probing, reduced to buzzwords like “the feminist generation gap” and “shallow cultural moment” instead of actual depth.

Set on the Yale campus, Luca Guadagnino’s cryptic After the Hunt revolves around two professors – married to one another – and a grad student who claims she was sexually assaulted after she is accused of plagiarizing her doctoral dissertation on virtue ethics. That much is clear; the rest is decidedly murky.