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.

NEXT: Venice Film Festival 2025: Bugonia Movie REVIEW

George Clooney and Adam Sandler star in Jay Kelly, a soulful, whimsical journey through regret and the bonds we forget to cherish.

“All my memories are movies” is a sentiment shared film fans around the world, surely shared by many reading this, and it’s a sentiment echoed the protagonist of Noah Baumbach’s latest work where aging movie star Jay Kelly (George Clooney) and his devoted manager Ron (Adam Sandler) embark on a whirlwind and unexpectedly profound journey through Europe. Along the way, both men are forced to confront the choices they’ve made, the relationships with their loved ones, and the legacies they’ll leave behind.

On the surface, Baumbach’s follow up to White Noise veers on the edge of feeling self-indulgent, given an undeniable autobiographical edge that permeates all through the film: from starting with a oner on a film set, to Baumbach’s self-inclusion in the film as… surprise: A film director; to the intelligent, yet unexpected fourth wall break that brings it all together. Yet, despite what these individual elements threaten to do, damaging the integrity of the story, together they end up elevating a story that runs purely on sentiment, and what a beautiful sentiment it is.

One that Baumbach is no stranger to, the director has a history of character driven story that despite their most outlandish qualities, always manages to keep us grounded in relatable reality, mostly through his characters. A credit that must be shared with his co-writer Emily Mortimer, who marks her brief yet impactful presence in the film as Jay Kelly’s hair & make up artist.

Despite the fact that we follow Jay Kelly in a movie named after the character, played by one of the most recognisable and arguable most iconic movie stars of our time, the film (and the man) never feels detached from reality, in fact, what’s so engaging about Jay Kelly as a character is that is past being hypnotised by the glitz and the glamour of fame and success. The man is past it, he now sees beyond it and realises what is truly important but life, like the movies, is a journey.

We follow Jay Kelly as he looks back at his life and reflects on the choices he made professionally, the sacrifices he made for the people around him when they didn’t really have a say, the successes that now have him feel hollow, and the mistakes he’s made that have damaged so many of his loved ones without him realizing.

It’s a movie not just about identity, but it forces the protagonist, and us, to interrogate his identity: When is it too late to stop being a bad friend? Or bad parent? When do we become irredeemable? Are we defined by the mistakes we can’t go back to fix? Or can we change ourselves and be a better version of ourselves? Be the version of ourselves we always wanted to be?

Throughout the film we’re taken into Jay Kelly’s mind as he reminisces on key moments of his life that led him down the path that brought him to where he is now: A man who after losing the director who gave him his first break, being confronted by an old friend who he wrong, becomes dispassionate about the adulation of the masses that has always been there (and still is), but what is not is the bonds he damaged and didn’t care for along the way, along the chase for that ever so elusive and undefined thing that’ll makes us “whole”.

These moments where Jay confronts the ghosts of his past; be it the people who no longer care to be there for him or previous versions of who he was, are brought to life with elegance and beauty and Baumbach brings us closer right before we step into a memory, creating the feeling that Jay his trapped in his own memories, haunted by these ghosts that trapped him in the now. We’re transported, along with Jay, from past to present and back not with a cut or some sort of visual effect, but instead it’s Jay himself who chooses to step into these private little worlds in his brain; moving from a train into the set of his first film, or a staggering directorial choice where a phone call becomes a solemn walk in a dark forest.

These sequences are not only visually & emotionally arresting but they force Jay into a desperate attempt to keep the people still around him close, but he’s confronted by the fact that, despite his ego never telling him so, those people have their own lives and have been affected by his choices without him even realising, or better yet: people who have been affected by his choices and he simply ignored it, because his passion took precedent.

Every sequence confronts a vulnerable Jay Kelly to look into who he truly is as a parent, as a friend, and even as a man, and the movie couldn’t have been better off than having George Clooney in the part. There’s a special quality to Clooney’s performance as Jay Kelly; not only does his vulnerability so naturally come to light but it’s as if he is dialling down the movie star charisma that has made him the star he is.

He’s focused on something beyond that as an actor and as a character, something rawer and purer and relatable, which is helped immensely by the phenomenal chemistry he shares with Adam Sandler as his manager Ron. The rapport between the two is like a beautiful tennis match of wits, and it’s the strongest relationship in the film as it’s the one where we see the cracks beginning to form and not one where the cracks are showing already.

A lot of the film, despite its introspective nature, even supports Ron’s view of Jay; by the time we’ve already seen Jay is not the best person, a quality that deserves praise as Baumbach does not shy away from painting Jay as a terrible father, a bad friend, and an egocentric celebrity whom the world revolves around. But characters aren’t that simple, more importantly, people aren’t that simple: we’re paradoxical beasts who can do just as much good as we can do bad.

How can people not be complex when we are so capable of loving and hating others, but more importantly when we have such a powerful capacity to hate ourselves above anyone else? No scene makes it clearer than when Jay chooses to go back to the last time he saw his oldest daughter Jessica (Riley Keogh), who in a moment of desperation asks her father to listen to how she was affected by his choices and his career, the path he chose instead of her, and Jay refuses; becoming now not only haunted by not being present in her life, but also by not taking accountability when she desperately wanted to simply be heard.

This is how Ron sees Jay, when the entire world is telling him Jay is not good for him, but a friend is a friend, and loyalty has to count for something. It’s this dynamic that not only brings tears but an immense sense of joy with each conversation the two shared, whether they are sharing a smile or wanting to give up on each other. But they are each other’s one and only constant, in a movie crowded with talent and recognisable faces: from Greta Gerwig, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Stacy Keach, Jim Broadbent, Eve Hewson, Patrick Wilson, Alba Rohrwacher, Josh Hamilton among so many others it’d be easy to lose track of who & what to focus on, but Baumbach’s focus is unflinching, only backing away from Jay when absolutely necessary to isolate him in his own mind.

These moments can feel a bit overwhelmingly expository, but in truth they illustrate Jay finally stop to try and rationalise the damage he’s done, little by little accepting that he isn’t this squeaky-clean person everyone should adore as they done. It’s not surprise that after each sequence where Jay looks into his past he comes back a more accepting version of himself who doesn’t try to rationalise his mistakes or act surprised when challenges on the damaged he’s caused, even if unintentionally.

The movie’s entire thesis can be found right as it starts with the quote: “It’s a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It’s much easier to be someone else or nobody at all.” Jay Kelly chose to lose himself in the roles he took to hides from his mistakes, the entirety of Jay Kelly ruminates on what it means to be yourself; using the star quality George Clooney adds to any frame to bring him, and the man he plays, back down to Earth and actually face the effects of his choices in a journey where the landscape is as transformative as the characters.

JAY KELLY beautifully blends melancholia & whimsy in an introspective journey through regret, the choices that define us & become ghosts of who we could’ve been. A phenomenal Clooney & Sandler share heartfelt chemistry in a soulful ode to the bonds we so often forget to cherish.

Final Grade: A

Jay Kelly will be released in select theaters on November 14th before coming to Netflix on December 5th.

NEXT: Venice Film Festival 2025: Bugonia Movie REVIEW

Lanthimos’ BUGONIA captivates with Stone and Plemons. It’s a fearless, off-beat film for our times, but the messaging overshadows the story.

Nobody does it like Yorgos Lanthimos, that stands for both his stylistic choices and approach to storytelling, as well as the rapid rate at which he brings out a new film nowadays. Having marked his presence at the 2023 Venice Film Festival with Poor Things he has shot two films since: last year’s Kinds of Kindness and his return to the Venice Film Festival this year: Bugonia.

A remake Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 film Save The Green Planet, the first for the Greek auteur, where all his Lanthimos-ness is dialled up to 11 in a movie that feels very much of our times. In Bugonia, two conspiracy-obsessed young men, Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap Micheller Fuller (Emma Stone) the high-powered CEO of a major pharmaceutical company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.

Bizarre as it may sound, it’s exactly what Lanthimos has become known for, it’s his signature stamp on the stories he tells, and once more Lanthimos uses the bizarre nature of his narrative to bring out the hysterical and deliver macabre laughs with the sometimes cringe inducing characters, such as is the case for Teddy, a lunatic on a mission with the attitude and social awareness of a petulant child, whose isolation and broken upbringing no doubt brought him to the moment he chooses to imprison a woman in his basement so she can make contact with her mothership and eventually save the Earth from its invaders, classic mentally healthy behaviour.

But while Teddy and Michelle’s back and forth brings both tension and laughs, Don’s part in the film unravels in the background as a tragedy; that of a man who unwittingly gets drags into a dangerous scenario and toxic living situation, where it’s clear that Teddy’s influence on him is so strong due to his isolation from anyone else besides family. He gets dragged into the same whole Teddy dug himself into only because Don doesn’t know any better, and maybe never had any better. The echo chamber effect feels very real and is constantly present in the film, in no small part due to the isolation we find ourselves in as an audience inside Teddy’s house: a hivelike structure with warm colours but a sinister tinge permeating every inch of every wall.

This isolation is purposeful and intentional on Teddy’s part, whenever the outside world wants to peer in he is hesitant and uncomfortable, most notably seen when local police officer Casey (Stavros Halkias) who happens to be Teddy’s former babysitter beigns to investigate the kidnapping of the famous CEO. The way Teddy sees it he exists only for his mission; blaming Michelle and her company Auxolith for placing his mother Sandy (Alicia Silverstone) in a come for an experimental procedure Teddy is convinced is a front for their true conquering Earth purposes.

Yet, Stone’s Michelle reads on paper as someone who would much more naturally fit the role of an antagonist, despite her being kidnapped and tortured in a basement under a house in the middle of nowhere situation, as he comes across as sterile and emotionless, someone who lives to work, whose entire life is on the clock with a very strict schedule and even dangerous dietary regiment: from waking up at 4:30am to direct exposure to radiation daily, countless pills being ingested and herself working in an isolated office that is bigger than Teddy’s entire house.

This contrast between the two characters, as well as their strong-willed personalities, makes the dynamic between the now two very familiar actors, especially under Lanthimos’ helm, so interesting and riveting to watch.

Despite how dark it can get, Lanthimos always manages to cleanse the palette of every scene with a purposefully awkward laugh or giggle; particularly during an extremely uncomfortable dinner scene where characters share an immensely unappealing plate of spaghetti & meatballs, there’s a flow to how dark & humorous Lanthimos can make a scene feel, as if he’s juggling tones without ever losing grasp of his point and messaging.

Said messaging cannot be missed too, Lanthimos doesn’t go for subtle purposefully, in fact, the bizarre nature previously mentioned takes front stage in the third act of the film, and what at first felt like a guessing game with Lanthimos using light and sound mixing to keep us guessing, engaging us in his crazed mystery, becomes and narrative solely focused on making sure the message comes across, when it arguably already had in spades.

It’s the biggest issue with Lanthimos messaging, he uses a narrative to deliver his message but eventually to accentuate his point he takes a magnifying glass and zooms in so close on what he wants to say that the story feels lost and almost plays second fiddle to the message itself.

Not to say there aren’t elements worthy of praise due to this: Lanthimos collaborations with cinematographer Robbie Ryan are always a feast for the eye: filled with character in each frame, leaving us unnerved with the enormity of the world and the places we see but little by little closing in to make us feel trapped and with no way out just like the characters. The performances too: Emma Stone’s intense yet dismissive Michelle proves to have to many layers as the film unravels it’s impossible to deny her commitment to the role, as well as Plemons whose “lack of chemistry” with Stone is essentially the point of their relationship. The pair never fails to lean into the grotesque, the gory, the bizarre and the macabre under Lanthimos’ direction.

The fun in Yorgos Lanthimos films is never to find out if he’ll make a good or bad movie, but much more how easy it will be to engage with, and he never fails to challenge audiences in what he delivers and how he delivers it, constantly keeping us guessing, intriguing us with his narrative choices and hard turns to engaging us through character and off-beat hilarity, leaving us uncomfortable but also uncomfortably laughing while also making us scratch our heads so much we can’t help but need to have conversations about what the hell did we just watch?

BUGONIA is a tough one to digest. Stone is fearless & Plemons always a welcome presence, both playing in Lanthimos’ off-beat & macabre playground that never fails to captivate. For better or worse a movie of our times but one where the story gets lost in the messaging.

FINAL GRADE: B-

BUGONIA releases in theaters on October 24, 2025.

NEXT: Patty Guggenheim on Bringing a New Kind of Darkness to Twisted Metal Season 2