After the Hunt (2025)
Directed by: Luca Guadagnino
Premise: A college professor (Julia Roberts) finds herself in the middle of a personal and professional conflict when one of her students (Ayo Edebiri) accuses a colleague (Andrew Garfield) of inappropriate behavior.
What Works: After the Hunt takes a nuanced approach to its characters and the core cast run with the material. Julia Roberts stars as Alma, a college professor who is married to a therapist played by Michael Stuhlbarg. The marriage is rocky; there is clearly dissatisfaction between them. Roberts and Stuhlbarg plays this well and it is a complicated portrait of a marriage. Alma also has a complex relationship with Hank, a fellow professor played by Andrew Garfield. Hank is lively and messy, the opposite of Alma’s husband, and Hank and Alma verge on an affair without decisively crossing that line. Their relationship and Hank’s impulsive behavior give credibility to the accusation made by a student played by Ayo Edebiri. After the Hunt shows interest in the intermingling of sexuality, relationships, and professionalism. No one is a perfect victim or a simple villain and the film has some exceptional character moments. Edebiri in particular has complicated scenes. There is a noticeable generational divide in which the characters talk past each other. After the Hunt is also quite funny. It’s almost a dark comedy with its deadpan and witty sense of humor.
What Doesn’t: After the Hunt feels quite long and lacks conflict. The story takes awhile to get to the assault allegation and once it does, the narrative lacks a clear direction forward. Julia Roberts’ character has a personal relationship with the student and the professor involved but she’s not required to make any difficult choices. The school dismisses the accused professor right away so there is no investigative drama. Rather than a legal or moral thriller, After the Hunt plays more as a tour of an institutional response to an assault allegation. But even that isn’t so interesting. The process for colleges and universities to adjudicate accusations has been well criticized and accused of creating kangaroo courts that undermine due process and free speech. After the Hunt does not dramatize that system. Roberts’ character has very little to do and the trajectory of her character doesn’t make sense. She eventually gets in trouble but on a completely unrelated issue and a coda sequence renders that choice free of consequences. After the Hunt feels so long because it’s so unfocused.
Disc extras: Available on Prime Video.
Bottom Line: There is a difference between being morally ambiguous and just having nothing to say. After the Hunt tends toward the latter. It does have some great performance and character work but those characters are placed in a story that doesn’t use them well.
Episode: #1076 (November 30, 2025)