Despite its provocative title, Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt is a muddled psychological thriller about the #MeToo generation and cancel culture.
Grade: C (*1/2* out of *****)
Nora Garrett’s screenplay was part of the 2023 Black List, an annual survey of the “most-liked” screenplays that are not yet produced.
Starring Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny, it follows Alma, a college professor caught in a sexual abuse accusation involving her favorite student and her close colleague.
The film had its world premiere out of competition in the 2025 Venice Film Fest, and was theatrically released by Amazon MGM on October 10, 2025.
The film received mostly negative reviews from critics, though Roberts and Garfield’s performances were praised.
The tale begns in Sep. 2019, when Alma Imhoff, a Yale University philosophy professor, and her therapist husband Frederik Mendelssohn host a dinner party. Alma recently returned to her post after taking an extended medical leave. Also attending are Hank Gibson, Alma’s colleague and best friend, and Maggie Resnick, her favorite PhD student, a Black lesbian–and both are up for tenure.
Snooping arond, Maggie finds a mysterious envelope in the bathroom cupboard containing old newspaper clipping.
The next day, Maggie confides in Alma that Hank sexually assaulted her in her home after she invited him in for a nightcap, but Alma seemms unsupportive and leaves.
Alma speaks to Hank shortly afterwards, who denies the allegation, claiming that it was Maggue who approached him sexually. He also argues that Maggie is fabricating the incident because he accused her of plagiarizing her dissertation.
After getting fired, Hank storms into Alma’s classroom, angrily accusing her of not standing up for him in order to protect her own career.
Maggie goes public with her allegation in the Yale Daily News. She also translates the German-language newspaper item which reveals that, as a teenager, Alma accused her father’s friend Matthias Wolff of raping her but later recanted the accusation.
Alma is caught forging a prescription for herself from Kim, and her tenure consideration is paused indefinitely. Afterwards, Alma runs into Maggie on campus and confronts her, making her own accusation of plagiarism, criticizing her work ethic, her mirroring of Alma’s mannerisms and dress, her privilege as the child of wealthy Yale donors, and accuses Maggie of performative relationship with her non-binary partner Alex.
While acknowledging flirts with students, he again denies that he had raped Maggie, or that he ever had sex with students.
Finally, Alma tells Frederik the truth about her sexual assault as teenager; how she was the one to initiate sexual relationship with Wolff, and fabricated rape allegation against him that she later recanted but led to his suicide.
In an epilogue, set in January 2025, Alma is now a dean, having restored her career by publishing an article about her experience with statutory rape as a teenager.
As Alma leaves the bar after drinks with Maggie, we hear director Guadagnino yells “cut!” off screen.
On paper, the film seems “urgent and provocative,” but the execution is muddled due to an overload of expository scenes and plot contrivances. Not trustng the material, in addition to sexual orientation, Guadagnino added racial subtext to the script by changing Maggie’s character from white to Black.
Garrett’s writing is muddled and rambling–her script feels amateurish, lacking finnesse, resulting in an overlong, overwrought #MeToo mleodrama.
Though After the Hunt is thematically unfocused, and thus ulitmately unsatisfying, it should get some credit for allowing personal interpretation of the characters by the viewers.
End Note:
It was the first film from Amazon MGM Studios to be released internationally by Sony Pictures Releasing International.
Greeted with negative reviews, it was a major box office disappointment, earning $3.2 million in its opening weekend. With a production budget of $70 million, of which Roberts received $20 million, the movie is one of the star’s’ least commercial and least satisfyng pictures.
Cast
Julia Roberts as Professor Alma Imhoff
Ayo Edebiri as “Maggie” Resnick, young philosophy student
Andrew Garfield as Henrik “Hank” Gibson, Alma’s colleague
Michael Stuhlbarg as Frederik Mendelssohn, Alma’s psychiatrist husband
Chloë Sevigny as Dr. Kim Sayers, student liaison and Alma’s friend
Thaddea Graham as Katie
David Leiber as Dean RJ Thomas
Lío Mehiel as Alex, a law student and Maggie’s partner
