Written by Keaton Wilder Marcus

Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt is not a cure to the real-world issues it chooses to depict. Instead, it functions as a piece of filmmaking that seeks to understand people on either side of the accuser-accused spectrum; people who we may typically never align with in a real-life situation that reflects this film’s fictional one. Guadagnino collaborates with first-time writer Nora Garrett (who graduated from NYU Tisch in 2013) in an equal-opportunity brawl that is sure to divide not simply because of its ambiguity towards female mentorship in academia but because of the frankness it carries towards the topic.

Luca Guadagnino and Julia Roberts gave an interview about the film in the New York Times recently. In the interview, Guadagnino reflects on his evident distaste for generalizations; as well as his taste for applying his encyclopedic knowledge of film history into the fabric of the cinema he directs. In After the Hunt, the film’s opening credits echo the font commonly used in the films of director Woody Allen — an infamous subject in a story under a similar umbrella to the one Guadagnino and Garrett carve out here. Guadagnino claims that he is simply a “film historian,” and the question of intention pales in comparison to the fact that it remains the most scintillating stylistic choice in the entire movie.

After the Hunt opens with the title card: “it happened at Yale” with said font. The film’s cast is listed alphabetically and we are immersed into the detail-oriented morning routine of Yale professor Alma set to the tune of a ticking clock. If anything, the film’s opening sequence is a testament to how Guadagnino likes to tell us about a character by how they begin the day. With this directorial choice in mind, it is difficult not to think of how Guadagnino introduced Art and Patrick to us in Challengers. Art’s meticulous training regimen and lounging on the couch in pajamas like he is in 70 questions with Vogue; Patrick’s sleeping in a car and drooling over a woman’s Dunkin’ Donuts sandwich until he gets his breakfast. Fast forward to the final act of the film and you will not recognize these two characters anymore.

Alma is currently in competition with her close colleague Hank (Andrew Garfield) for tenure. She is widely respected by her students and peers but not necessarily considered a warm presence in their lives. Students greet her on campus not out of friendliness but more desperation for acknowledgment. Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) is the PHD candidate who has ambiguously won that coveted attention from Alma with a thesis vaguely described by her professors as “having the potential to be great.” Maggie claims that Hank, after walking her home one night, “crossed a line” in their student-teacher relationship. Her issue is that she decides to confide in Alma first, not Yale — due to her “history” of uplifting women in academia.

To Maggie, the female solidarity she believes she holds with Alma in their male-dominated arena is not simply friendship but additionally a level of status which many students — particularly female — covet. In the aforementioned New York Times piece, Roberts described Alma’s aesthetic as instrumental to her character. In one sense, costume designer Giulia Piersanti enrobes Roberts with stitch lapel jackets and double-pleat fluid trousers and an Alex Mill Mercer Denim shirt that create an inevitable outfit envy not only within viewers — but within Maggie herself.

Guadagnino makes it plain as day that Maggie wants to imitate Alma. In fact, she not only admires Alma — but wishes to embody her. When Alma turns out to be a person Maggie no longer envies, Alma becomes a narrative which Maggie can manipulate to her own advantage. Alma is an idol in the eyes of Maggie when she is the superwoman in blazers at the brink of Yale tenure; when she rejects a male student’s idiotic premise that the heterosexual white man is the biggest victim in our contemporary society. But when Alma isn’t a figure of female consolation after Maggie alleges Hank assaulted her, who is she but a white woman in a position of power fending for no one but herself?

If we are to take a moment and commemorate the movie itself and not simply its fascinating nuance, Julia Roberts and Ayo Edebiri are magnetic in this scene. Maggie is drenched by the rain and hugging her own body; Alma is an unreadable wall when Roberts delivers the question: “So, what actually happened?” According to Maggie, Hank was inappropriate. He crossed a line. But according to the expressions on the face of Roberts, Alma is not thinking of Maggie — she’s thinking of herself.

Perhaps Alma feels tokenized by her female protege. Maggie did not think of Yale’s headmaster and she did not think of her parents to confide in — she thought of Alma. Alma does not want to be defined by another woman’s struggle. She does not want to be named in the articles that are going to be written about this accusation. She does want various things; whether that be tenure or acknowledgement outside of the mentorship of a student who was allegedly assaulted. This piece is not here to acquit Alma of her flaws either. What are the consequences of a woman in power denying consolation to a woman in need for the sake of her own status? The consequences the movie hands to Alma are life-altering, to say the least.

Alma’s aesthetic is also the coldness which she reckons with throughout the entire film. She is so insecure about her personality that it becomes a conversation with her loving and loyal psychologist husband — Frederik (a fantastic Michael Stuhlbarg) — who claims she’s simply “impenetrable.” What’s “impenetrable” to Frederik is unforgivable to Maggie — who fancies herself as a private investigator entitled to Alma’s personal life in order to justify a crusade against her.

This question is specific to Alma because she feels trapped as Maggie’s “helper” in a situation that is so frequently and ignorantly reduced to a woman’s issue. Garrett and Guadagnino’s Alma is a fascinating female character because she wants to feel more significant than the assault Maggie alleges. Alma’s quest, in essence, is to be viewed as more than a woman in a male-dominated space and more than an exception to the rule. Perhaps that makes Alma very difficult to stand behind as the undeniable protagonist of this film. If this piece is to consider the negative reviews the movie has incurred, critics believe After the Hunt undermines one female character in service of another’s selfishness. In other words, many contend the movie takes the side of Alma.

Maggie claims she confided in Alma before anyone else because of her history helping women in the philosophy department. The aforementioned male student claims that Alma will receive tenure instead of Hank because he believes more opportunities for women means less opportunities for men. The film depicts Alma being reduced to woman first and human being second throughout its entire running time. With all that being said, the film also firmly believes Maggie has every right to confide in Alma; and every additional right to expose Hank’s boundary-crossing behavior and get him fired.

The film is being criticized for holding a bias towards one of its characters while simultaneously being too neutral in its position towards “cancel culture.” After the Hunt is a movie directed by a 54 year-old man and written by a 34 year-old woman. Diverse thinking behind the camera can create diverse filmmaking in front of it — yes — but After the Hunt is a welcome conversation between two artists from different generations on a topic that all too frequently gets reduced to an issue of “generational gaps.”

Perhaps this is a movie that is less focused on making statements and more so on provoking them. Skimming the frequently negative 203 comments on the New York Times article, that would seem to be the case. But if After the Hunt is less concerned with anything, it is those vigorously typing about how they disapprove of Roberts — who is a college dropout — portraying a Yale philosophy professor.

After the Hunt has sparked multimedia conversation ever since the controversy surrounding reporter Federica Polidoro’s exclusion of Ayo Edebiri in a question pertaining to Black Lives Matter being “over.” In a sense, this is an obvious case of life imitating art. In another, it is difficult not to give credit to Edebiri’s performance as Maggie for successfully getting under the skin of ignorant reporters who enjoy looking at the film as a relic of past tension.

If anything, the press tour for After the Hunt was a testament to Julia Roberts being the seasoned movie star she is. In the case of Polidoro’s exclusionary words, Roberts gave way to Edebiri — who rightfully countered the question herself. The politically correct era is not over. The Black Lives Matter movement isn’t either. If one were to reduce the two movements to their presence on social media, there is an argument to be made on the viral nature of them being temporary. But After the Hunt is not about what we lost during the politically correct era — it is about what we still have to gain.

The movie does not wish to condemn those who believe it “undermines the feminist movement,” as a reporter phrased it to Roberts during the Venice Film Festival press conference. Instead, as Roberts puts it, After the Hunt warrants discussion over Martinis. The film is about cancel culture — and perhaps the #MeToo movement — but it’s also a Luca Guadagnino movie. Having an encyclopedic knowledge of Guadagnino’s portfolio, he is less of a provocateur and more someone who enjoys letting his stories simmer in the background they are set during.

In We Are Who We Are, the series candidly depicts teenagers on a United States military base during the weeks leading up to the 2016 election. Challengers features a radio segment in Patrick’s car commenting on Hillary Clinton’s election campaign. Bones and All is about two cannibalistic lovers on a road trip but also features a Reagan/Bush sign on a truck they use. After the Hunt technically takes place during two timelines: the year before Joe Biden succeeded Donald Trump and the year following Trump’s succession of Biden. There is additionally a CNN broadcast in the background that reports on the infamous removal of DEI Programs under the Trump Administration. Guadagnino is a filmmaker who likes to place his fictional characters in worlds that feel close to home — and whether his subtlety is cowardly or masterful is up for grabs, just like the political easter eggs he leaves in the crevices of his movies.