Movie Review: AFTER THE HUNT

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: October 10th, 2025 / 02:51 AM

Rating: R
Stars: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny, Lio Mehiel, David Leiber, Thaddea Graham
Writer: Nora Garrett
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Distributor: Amazon/M-G-M Studios
Release Date: October 10, 2025

AFTER THE HUNT succeeds in keeping us intrigued throughout its two-hour-and-nineteen-minute running time. This feat is all the more impressive because it is emotionally unengaging.

This isn’t just because we’re meant to wonder about the secrets and fabrications of all the characters, not just the two in what’s arguably the most readily identifiable dispute in AFTER THE HUNT. It’s also, or perhaps mainly, because we gradually realize that none of these people seem to genuinely like anybody else. Sure, some of them are in love, or in lust, or may even admire or envy or appreciate others, but there’s a dearth of human fellow feeling. Without this as a baseline, we’re not sure how to react to each individual’s sense of fairness, responsibility, and so on.

AFTER THE HUNT begins with the onscreen announcement “It happened at Yale.” Assistant professor Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) teaches philosophy here. Alma is good friends with fellow assistant philosophy professor Hank (Andrew Garfield), somewhat to dismay of her psychiatrist husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg).

Both Alma and Hank are eagerly pursuing tenure. There’s no reason to suppose they both won’t achieve it, but what becomes of their relationship if one gets it and the other doesn’t? They joke about it, but it’s an area of concern.

Some of the star students, like doctoral candidate Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), are on a cordial enough basis to socialize with their instructors. Maggie’s parents are major donors to the university, which may or may not factor into why she is touted as such a promising young woman. Maggie sees Alma as a mentor.

Frederik is sure that both Maggie (who is a lesbian) and Hank have crushes on Alma and further, that this (as opposed to Maggie and/or Hank’s personal appeal) is why Alma really enjoys having them around.

One night, Alma and Frederik throw a dinner party at their home. Hank and Maggie are both in attendance. Hank offers to walk Maggie home. Maggie accepts.

In short order, Maggie and Hank separately show up at Alma’s door. Maggie says that Hank assaulted her. Hank says that he told Maggie he knew she’d plagiarized her thesis and that she is making false accusations out of revenge. This puts Alma in a terrible position, for even more reasons than are immediately evident.

The script by Nora Garrett winds up being a kind of meta Rorschach test. Are we meant to take anyone’s/everyone’s sentiments about ethics, gender, race, class, privilege, education, culture, etc. seriously, or are we meant to think that all the characters are so blinded by their own agendas (even if they don’t realize it) that their opinions are invalid? If the latter is true, what if anything here should we take seriously?

These are all worthy questions, but they seem more appropriate to a participatory debate than the kind of drama AFTER THE HUNT presents. Director Luca Guadagnino gives us intense close-ups that clue us in to the characters’ reactions in the moment, but don’t add to the conversation. We also get ironic visuals, like Alma’s habit of dressing in black and white ensembles amid the moral gray of the action.

There’s a wee bit of transphobia, as Alma’s attitude towards Maggie’s nonbinary partner Alex (Lio Mehiel) gets a laugh line. (Yeah, Alma, Alex is living their life just to inconvenience you.)

There are times when we have to step out of the story to consider whether we believe some of the characters’ decisions, both sudden and long-standing. We can see that Alma has some sort of illness. We eventually find out what it is, but not why she is compelled to keep it secret. Likewise, why she hides something private where she does is baffling. Then there are Maggie’s notions of what constitutes evidence.

Still, so much is going on, with such vigor and visual zest, that our curiosity is sustained. What’s going to happen? Who is going to drop the ball, who will triumph, and what will victory even look like?

Roberts plays every aspect of Alma with tightly wound conviction. Often cast as truly good people, the performer seems to revel in the opportunity to be cutting, cold, even cruel. Adebiri gets both the tentativeness and the hurt of someone who is thrown when she doesn’t get the validation she seeks. Garfield has the wounded self-righteousness that seems true to someone in his position. Stuhlbarg radiates common sense and warmth as Alma’s patient spouse – hard to determine if he likes her, but he definitely loves her. Chloë Sevigny likewise seems to be an advocate for sanity.

By the end of AFTER THE HUNT, we have the tools to piece together what happened on the night in question, and why both Maggie and Hank are so positive they are in the right. We just don’t know what we’re meant to make of what the film has to say about this or much else.

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