What is After the Hunt even about?

Valeria Matheus Guerrero ‘29 / Emertainment Monthly Staff Writer

Emerson students got invited to an advance screening of After the Hunt on Thursday October 2nd. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, whose work includes Challengers and Call me by Your Name, the film contains a pretty heavy cast, with the main three characters being portrayed by Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield. 

So as one can expect, the screening was pretty full. After all, there were big expectations for this film, with many people sharing beforehand that they expected a film filled with nuance about what cancel culture was, and how it is approached in college settings—especially when speaking about a sexual assault case between a student and a professor. 

In the end though, what filled the room was a lot of confusion about the themes of the movie and what it actually tried to accomplish, with many complaints being about  the multiple topics lacking a deeper understanding. 

Spoilers ahead. The following content contains themes regarding sexual assault/abuse.

The film starts with the morning routine of Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts), who is a Yale philosophy professor. The sequence is accompanied by the sound of a ticking clock, throwing audiences into an immediate sense that something is bound to happen. The other characters are then quickly introduced, like Maggie Price (Ayo Edebiri), a mentee of Alma, and Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield), who has a lot of chemistry with Alma as a very close friend.

The chaos begins during a party at Alma’s home, where multiple facts are revealed to the audience: Maggie seems to be infatuated by Alma, Alma seems to be very observational, and Hank is shown to be very handsy. 

Moments later and after the scene is over, the audience sees a shivering Maggie on Alma’s doorstep in tears with the accusation that Hank assaulted her. Eventually, Hank loses his job which leaves Alma agitated, and the incident grows more complicated as Hank pleads  his innocence, forcing Alma to decide the best course of action.

The script also reveals very quickly that the characters are imperfect, and that they are very unreliable narrators. In Maggie’s case, it is revealed that an important  paper was most likely plagiarized, and in Alma’s case, she suffers from substance abuse and has a very strong bias against Maggie coming forward with her story due to her own experiences. 

Around this time is when the audience began to realize how much the story was trying to pack within its two hours and nineteen minute runtime. First, it deals with the huge generational gap that is seen in the real world to this day, particularly as Gen Z students start to enter college. Adding to this complexity is the difference in genders, with the film emphasizing how Alma has made a huge breakthrough in a male-dominated field, and how Maggie hopes to follow in her footsteps. 

Furthermore, Maggie is black, gay and extremely wealthy, providing representation that often goes unnoticed while also bringing the topic of elitism into a film already set against  prestigious surroundings.. The film could have used this angle more, particularly during an argument between Maggie and Alma where the topics of generation and race are brought up. 

In the scene, a line that particularly stood out is when Alma tells Maggie that “not everything is supposed to make you comfortable.” This is one of the main themes of the movie, with it being the tagline on its poster. 

There are many instances where this movie does make  the viewer uncomfortable, whether through  Hank’s excuses, the arguments, or the way characters refer to Alex (Lío Mehiel), Maggie’s non-binary partner. Yet it does so in a surface-level way, with no real answers to any of the film’s heavy topics by the end. The final scene is a lackluster reunion between the two main female characters after what one can assume are years without contact—leaving it ambiguous as to whether Hank is guilty or not, and. leaving it up to the audience to decide the impact of what gender, sexuality, wealth, and cancel culture do to a community. 

However, whether people like After the Hunt or not, there should be  a general agreement between viewers that the performances put on by the actors are quite amazing. Roberts delivers a role  that is very honest, proving once again her range as an actress, while Edibiri further establishes herself as a blossoming emotional powerhouse. Lastly, Garfield delivers one of his best performances by making the characters of Hank genuinely unlikable at times and even miserable to watch.

In the end, After the Hunt feels like a film that desired to start a conversation about multiple topics regarding college life, but did not know how to lead it. Guadagnino’s direction and the cast elevate a  script that ends up coming off as too ambitious with its  half-explored themes. 

While the movie’s ambiguity could have been its strength, it instead blurs a line between moral and emotional clarity to the point of confusion.