'After the Hunt' (Gudagnino, 2025) - Review

The controversial film of the year ironically ends up one-dimensional.

Regrettably, After the Hunt falls into the style-over-substance category, where even the performances cannot sustain enough layers to make us forget the one-toned screenplay.

Written by Kenza Bouhnass-Parra

Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt just opened in theatres. The film follows Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts), a college professor awaiting her long-coveted tenure, who sees her reputation and beliefs be challenged when one of her colleagues, Hank (Andrew Garfield), is accused of sexual assault by her stellar student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri).

The already polarising film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival back in August and has since been making the festival rounds. On my side, for as much as there is to criticise, I find something to appreciate. It is a film that wants to be precise, from the neat wardrobes of every single character, Alma’s impeccable suits oppose Hank’s disheveled blouses, to the very intentional blurry close-ups or inserts of hands whenever a character is revealing vulnerability. Luca Guadagnino pairs with cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed, his return to the big screen since 1998’s Belly, and the result is a greyish bleak atmosphere, honky angles and unexpected stars into the camera, a photography that I particularly responded to. The director also reunites with his trusted composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who offer us a sharp score that perfectly encapsulates the volatility of the account. Both the score and the sound design are used as narrative tools of their own, signalling and highlighting corners of the intrigue that would have gotten drowned otherwise.

My main nitpick comes from the screenplay, which I wish held more subtlety. Questions regarding whether said assault did or did not happen appear to me as superficial—the answer also seems a no-brainer—as it is merely used as an entry point into those characters’ dynamics. Alma and Hank are renowned Ivy League professors, both white and in heterosexual relationships, but come from rather impoverished families, whereas Maggie’s parents, a black queer student, are some of the most important donors to the elite college. It is that clash of privileges that creates thwarted crossings in the trio and justifies the characters’ reasonings and actions. They all, in their own way, feel wronged by society, and they, in their own way, feel like they constantly have to prove themselves, or else they will be kicked out of the podium. Partnered with the analysis of female mentorship to younger women in a male-dominated field, After the Hunt’s premise is set to weave together fascinating interplays.

But all that amounted tension falls flat when motivations are described instead of being shown and left to be analysed by the viewer. The screenplay never trusts the audience enough to explore on its own, to draw its own conclusions without being guided, or even, most of the time, directly told about a character’s inner logic. ‘Show, don’t tell’ is shown the door, and the emphasis is put on over-explaining a decision, a movement, a thought. No rock is left unturned, but the audience is left starving.

Regrettably, After the Hunt falls into the style over substance category, where even the performances—and Julia Roberts' acting circles around her counterparts—cannot sustain enough layers to make us forget the one-toned screenplay.

After the Hunt is now playing in theatres.