After The Hunt Movie REVIEW [Venice Film Festival 2025]

After The Hunt is a flawed but bravely nuanced analysis of truth & perspective. It’s uncomfortable & thematically riveting but convoluted.

The Venice Film Festival has its share of favourite filmmakers that consistently mark their presence yearly, or at least most years, and none seem to excite audiences more than the presence of one Luca Guadagnino who is back with year with the tense thriller After The Hunt, an uncomfortable dissection of gender dynamics and the complex conversations & conflicts generated around it.

Guadagnino relishes having his characters exist in a constant state of discomfort, a feeling that rapidly is passed on to viewers as we follow a college professor Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when her star student Maggie Resnick (Ayo Edebiri) makes an accusation against one of her colleagues, Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield), and a dark secret from Alma’s own past threatens to come to light.

But what on the service can be described as a story about sexual abuse, shows itself to be much more about its effects on the people involved beyond the accuser and the accused. Luca brings discomfort not by present this topic of discussion but rather raises the distressing question: “Is it true?”, whose voice to we hear out and how can we question what is true unafraid of stepping on people’s toes, something Guadagnino and writer Nora Garrett are unafraid to do with their characters, leaving them shaken and uncertain of who to trust.

Trust that begins to crack right from the opening party Alma and her husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) host her philosophy students and Yale colleagues, where music and food and drinks rotate around the room, abundance captured through an effortless oner to the rhythm of highly self-important discussions on philosophy, racism, misogyny, gender dynamics and some much more.

Guadagnino & Garrett’s intent becomes clear, while the characters in this story are open and willing to approach this constant sense of reassurance to discuss sensitive topics the filmmakers are preparing to witness and push how far our comfort goes, and slowly but surely challenge their own characters on their set worldviews.

Maggie is the first to show a sign of discomfort after Hank grabs her thigh while adulating her on-going work on her dissertation, a gesture that seems to not raise any eyebrows around the room, despite Maggie’s attempts to lock eyes with someone, anyone, who will notice, but since noting happens Maggie excuses herself to the bathroom where, while looking for toilet paper, finds a hidden letter with pictures and a newspaper cutout that she chooses to hide in her pocket, leaving everything else where it was not to raise suspicions and eventually leaving the party with Hank who offers to walk her home, or at least we’re told is what happens.

What’s so brave about Guadagnino’s direction and Garrett’s screenplay is how carefully they’ve calibrated what we hear and what we see, blurring the lines between truth and perspective, which is a very philosophical way to frame things in it of itself.

Never betraying this POV, as we follow the story through the eyes of Alma, we’re relegated to interpret what is said to her by other characters with the skewed information we have and no more. The accusation and consequent fallout come and go rather quickly, about 30 to 40 minutes into the film Hank is let go and has a nearly violent outburst on campus where students witness his rage at Alma and Maggie first hand. While this may be the last time we see Hank for a while, his presence and perspective on what happened is still felt as cracks begin to show in Alma’s relationship with Maggie, the rest of her students, her colleagues and even her husband.

Alma is reserved and distant, preferring to keep to herself but always open to the information others willingly share with her, even her husband Frederik, whose disposition and behaviour is a ray of shining light, a reprieve from the heaviness of the story, proves to be no better than anyone else when it comes to Alma choosing to open up with him regardless of his constant presence, open mindedness and dedication to take her of Alma and her appendicitis. Frederik is shown to have a routine that consists of making sure Alma gets her meds, receiving patients at his at-home psychiatric office, cook for Alma, and dance while he cooks, and Stuhlbarg brings real joie de vivre to the film whenever he’s on screen.

The same can’t be said for his wife, whose days seemingly revolve around professional curiosity and the need to assert her power over others, what makes Alma uncomfortable is never the topic of discussion but when others try to be let in by her, and judging by her vitriolic reaction to these attempts at connection or closeness, she considers this a cardinal sin.

We are swept out of the warmth and lavishness of the opening scene forever after that, the film has a strikingly cold and almost sterile look and feel, illustrating Alma’s perspective of others and even herself given what she’s confronted by when the friction between her and Maggie grows too intense for her to ignore.

While this constantly makes the narrative flow intriguing and the character dynamics rich and as nuanced as the topical thematic discussion, it’s no help that mostly every character (Frederik is innocent) sounds like a pompous, self-aggrandising and entitled douche high on their own intelligence and, if they have any, accomplishments. It’s a grating experience to watch that is only saved thanks to the remarkable work of Julia Roberts, whose attitude never completely eclipses her humanity and fragility, as we’re reminded of her faults by way of her disease that has her nearly collapse every time it strikes.

It’s one of the ways the narrative tiptoes into to let us in on Alma’s inner world in quite an intelligent way that paints her the stark contrast of Maggie despite their superficial similarities that bring them together in the first place, but the ticking time bomb feel of their dynamic can be distracting, most notably in the score, intensifying in the most random moments, as if Frederik himself is pumping up the volume on Reznor & Ross’ work while cooking.

But perhaps the biggest letdown for After The Hunt is Ayo Edebiri, who is not given an easy task, as she is supposed to be the trigger that unravels every other character’s life and relationship, making their uglier sides and disingenuous selves come out into the light, but what’s so damaging is the long periods where Maggie is absent and barely mentioned in the story. She comes in and out whenever the film needs to focus back on the issue at hand and Maggie is the physical embodiment of what the rest of the assemble refuses to contemplate and try to ignore when she’s not present, but this makes Maggie more of a concept instead of an actual character, leaving Ayo’s performance somewhat stifled and lacking equal depth to the rest of the ensemble.

Flawed as it may be, Guadagnino’s work proves still challenging in its brave approach to the nuanced themes embedded into Garrett’s screenplay, and it’s impossible to ignore the humility of the filmmakers in not really giving clear answers or pretend to be some kind of authority on the subject or even on the idea of “truth”, the intent is simply to allow discomforting discussions in when confronted with an uncomfortable scenario or idea as this rejection is exactly what holds the characters in the film back, making the all-seeing framing hard to watch but also come across as self-indulgent.

After The Hunt is a flawed but bravely nuanced analysis of truth & perspective. It’s uncomfortable & thematically riveting but convoluted in integrating ideas & characters, frustratingly holding back its powerful themes due to its sense of self-importance. Stuhlbarg innocent.

Michael Stuhlbarg innocent.

Final Grade: B-

After The Hunt comes to theaters on October 10.

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