‘After the Hunt’ Review: Despite a Stellar Julia Roberts, Luca Guadagnino’s Latest is a #MeToo Misfire [C-] Venice

A lot has changed since 2017, when the first accusations against film producer Harvey Weinstein surfaced. One after one, the women who were sexually harassed and assaulted by Weinstein came forth, sharing their traumatic experiences, forming a movement that would be soon called #MeToo. Most of the times, women are too scared to come out and press charges against their abusers, afraid of the repercussions, of public reaction, of not being believed, which would figure as an extension of that trauma. Can one imagine being sexually assaulted, report it and not be believed? It only makes things worse.

Despite the huge media attention that #MeToo rightfully got, Hollywood has mostly shied away from talking about it or putting it on film. Only Maria Schrader’s She Said did, telling the actual story of how the movement began. Luca Guadagnino’s latest feature, After the Hunt, premiering Out of Competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, puts the story of a sexual assault at its center, but this time the narrative around it seems much more muddled.

After The Hunt takes place in current-day New Haven, Connecticut. New Haven is home to Yale University, one of the most prestigious schools in the world. Seemingly detached Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts) and flamboyant and playful Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield) are friends and professors in the Philosophy department, and both are on track to get tenure. They’re having dinner with Alma’s adorable, almost subservient husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) and some of their best students. Among them, the one who stands out is Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), who’s believed to be writing one of the best dissertations in the university’s recent history and who has a sheer adoration for Alma. These two groups – the professors and their students – have clearly different views on each other’s generations, giving ground to a generational struggle that will make itself manifest as the film goes on.

The day after, coming back home from her office, under the proverbial torrential rain, Alma finds Maggie waiting for her. Something has happened and she needs to speak with her: Maggie, who happens to be gay, claims that Hank, who accompanied her home the night before, sexually assaulted her despite her struggles. This starts a domino effect of betrayals and accusations that will force Alma to deal with her own relationships, not just the one with Hank, someone who’s much more than just a colleague and a friend, and the ones with her husband Frederik and her star student Maggie, but also with a dark secret from her past.

Luca Guadagnino’s films have left a mark on the past decade of cinema with their swooning sensuality, their feverish depiction of latent desires, of bodies in contact, of the visceral meeting the rational. This time, Guadagnino has chosen a different path. After The Hunt is his most cerebral film to date, though, despite the high anticipation, not his most accomplished.

Let’s start with what I think is its most glaring flaw: despite the hotly controversial subject matter, and the themes that the movie decides to attach to it, like ethnic/racial privilege not just in academia, the movie doesn’t seem to have much to say, or it doesn’t seem to know what it wants to say. It tries to avoid implicit generic statements like “Believe all women!” or “Not all men…”, but in trying to get deep into the topic, it loses itself because, at the end of it all, the entire movie is based on a “he said/she said” structure that undermines the triggering incident. It becomes quite obvious soon into the movie that everyone has something to hide, almost all characters are compromised liars, making it difficult not just to really care about them but also making the plot quite convoluted. The script is too verbose and talky, especially for a director like Guadagnino who loves to explore the unsaid: the Italian director’s trademark style, which usually highlights the tension by exploding it, feels rather contained, constricted, his direction lacks the irresistibly sexy allure of Challengers and Queer but also the melancholic and romantic empathy of Call Me By Your Name and Bones And All. Instead, it feels like a poorly made homage to Woody Allen and his psychological thrillers (Match Point in particular), a connection that feels even more evident right out of the gate, as the opening credits are written in the exact same font Allen uses in all of his films.

After the Hunt can also be associated to Todd Field’s Tár, another film about a highly respected figure plunged into chaos through accusations of abuse and assault, but while Tár is original, visually arresting, narratively absorbing, After the Hunt is derivative and with a certain tendency to camp. One thing the two films have definitely in common is a great central performance: though not quite as incendiary and charismatic as Cate Blanchett was in her film’s titular role, Julia Roberts gives Alma the three dimensions one would expect from such an experienced and talented actress. In her hands, Alma is a very accomplished professor, but she’s also a woman constantly seeking adulation: as the wonderful Michael Stuhlbarg says in the film, “You choose the people who worship you on bended knee.” Alma sort of traps herself into the situation she finds herself in, because the two people closest to her – her colleague and lover, and her adoring best student – all want her support. She struggles but she goes on, all the while fighting a secret that is trying to emerge, a secret manifested by ulcerous attacks that she gets to experience more and more frequently. Roberts is a commanding presence throughout the movie, making her a viable contender for an Oscar nomination once again.

Despite Roberts’ performance and a provocative subject matter, After the Hunt falls short of expectations, becoming one of Luca Guadagnino’s rare missteps in a career of gems.

Grade: C-

This review is from the 2025 Venice Film Festival where After the Hunt world premiered out of competition. Amazon MGM will release the film theatrically in the U.S. on October 17 after it opens the New York Film Festival in September.