Boardroom’s Michelai Graham examines the uneasy dance between intellect and emotion in Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, a cerebral drama led by Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, and Andrew Garfield.
Some movies whisper their tension before you even realize you’re holding your breath.
After the Hunt tries to do that, and at times, it succeeds. The faint ticking sound that opens the film is pleasantly unsettling, creating an undercurrent of dread that resurfaces in key moments. But the motif also feels misplaced here; a stylistic choice that calls attention to itself more than it serves the story. This isn’t a thriller that requires sound cues to convey when to feel anxious; the script itself already evokes that unease.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino, After the Hunt is an unnerving exploration of truth, power, and institutional hypocrisy. But despite its sharp ideas and all-star cast, the film sometimes feels more like an intellectual exercise than an emotionally compelling drama — one that’s easier to admire than to fully connect with. Guadagnino builds a world of moral ambiguity, but the emotional distance can leave you stranded just outside of it, watching the chaos instead of feeling it.
Let’s dive a bit deeper into the film’s themes and performances.
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The Anatomy of Academia
At the center of the film is Alma (Julia Roberts), a literature professor whose tidy, erudite life begins to unravel when one of her students, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), accuses fellow professor Henrik “Hank” (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault. What follows isn’t a straightforward scandal or investigation; it’s an excavation of secrets, guilt, and self-preservation, wrapped in academia’s carefully curated civility.
Although the story unfolds at Yale, After the Hunt never actually sets foot on campus. The film drops familiar Yale references — Woolsey Hall, Cody’s Diner, even a faculty parking lot — but most of those scenes were brought to life on soundstages in England. A few New Haven exteriors were digitally recreated, blending the real and the artificial in a way that mirrors the story’s own moral duplicity. That creative decision feels intentional. Guadagnino builds a version of Yale that’s less about geographic authenticity and more about atmosphere, an imagined Ivy League microcosm where power, intellect, and scandal coexist beneath polished surfaces.
Guadagnino builds this world with deliberate discomfort. Conversations linger just a beat too long. Emotions hide behind intellect. Morality shifts depending on who’s speaking. The film thrives on tension but rarely lets it ease. It’s no accident that these characters live in the philosophy department; a world built on questions of ethics, truth, and what it means to be “right.” Their academic debates bleed into their personal lives, turning theory into weaponry. The film uses the study of philosophy as both a mirror and a metaphor: A reminder that intellectualizing morality is easier than living it, especially when the biggest ethical test arrives not in a classroom, but in real life.
For those drawn to moral puzzles and blurred boundaries, After the Hunt offers plenty to dissect. But if you’re craving a cleaner narrative or a stronger emotional current, its indulgent tone and sprawling ideas may test your patience as much as they challenge your mind.
Performance Check
The film’s most consistent strength lies in its performances.
Roberts delivers a nuanced, quietly devastating portrayal of a woman whose moral compass has been eroding for years. She plays Alma with the kind of restraint that only a veteran actor can pull off — all control until the mask finally slips. Every glance and half-smile carries decades of denial. Even when Alma’s choices border on unforgivable, Roberts never lets her tip into caricature. She remains relatable, even when you disagree with her character’s decision-making skills.
Edebiri, on the other hand, brings sharpness and immediacy to Maggie, a PhD student caught in the crossfire of conviction, ambition, and identity. She’s both fearless and naive, and that duality makes her impossible to look away from. What’s fascinating is how her energy contrasts with Roberts’ — the old guard guiding, testing, and at times undermining the new. Their dynamic often feels like an acting baton being passed in real time: Roberts, the seasoned force of a generation, shepherding Edebiri, one of Hollywood’s freshest voices, into a moment of moral and emotional complexity. It’s eerie how that mentorship–rivalry dynamic mirrors their characters’ relationship on screen. Watching them share the frame feels like witnessing two eras of storytelling meet, challenge, and quietly learn from one another.
Then there’s Garfield, who slips into the role of Henrik with unnerving ease. He plays the sad, self-absorbed academic so well that you almost feel bad for him — until you remember you shouldn’t. Or should you? Garfield finds a strange vulnerability in his arrogance, a loneliness in his manipulation, that keeps you on edge. He’s both pathetic and dangerous, the kind of man who mistakes charm for depth. His volatility serves the plot well.
Together, the trio forms a sharp-edged triangle of intellect, attraction, and accusation that holds the story together even when the pacing falters. Their chemistry does the heavy lifting that the script sometimes refuses to do, reminding you that in After the Hunt, truth isn’t just something to uncover; it’s something performed.
Final Thoughts
I’m all for films that challenge you and demand you think, analyze, and sit with discomfort. I champion moral puzzles, ambiguity, and brain-teaser narratives. But I only love them when they eventually land somewhere — when the fog lifts just enough to reveal what it all meant. After the Hunt never quite does that for me.
The film builds a house of mirrors and then leaves you wandering inside it, waiting for someone to turn on the light. Even the final scene, which seems designed to offer clarity, left me more puzzled than reflective.
When the story ends on a quiet, almost meta “cut,” it’s hard to tell if we’ve reached catharsis or if Guadagnino simply walked away mid-thought.
After the Hunt wants to haunt you, and maybe it will. But for me, it stayed mostly in my head, not my gut. Beautifully acted and intellectually rich, but too enamored with its own complexity to give its characters, or the audience, a satisfying sense of truth.
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