In Defense of ‘After the Hunt’ – How Luca Guadagnino’s Latest is His Most Morally Complex Yet
In her first piece for AwardsWatch, Mariane Tremblay looks at the response to After the Hunt after its festival run and takes the side of it being a misunderstood masterpiece.
“Who do you believe?” — that’s the headline Variety used for one of its articles on Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt. After reading it, you might pause and think how wrong that sounds, given the film’s subject, but if you’ve seen it or overheard the uncomfortable conversations as people leave the theatre, you know just how fitting and provocative it is.
This reaction speaks to larger cultural conversations about sexual assault, consent, and accountability — conversations that the film enters head-on. Some might argue that After the Hunt feels outdated and should’ve been released a few years ago, given the impact of the #MeToo movement in 2017, but I disagree. The picture has changed over the past few years regarding sexual assault, yet some old patterns remain. The #MeToo movement sparked crucial conversations, but it also revealed how much work remains. Although the number of reported incidents has increased, the figures are still low, not only because of underreporting but also because many systems fail to hold abusers accountable. Sadly, some things haven’t changed, and neither have many people’s mindsets. There will never be enough conversations about this subject, nor enough awareness, nor enough destigmatization. This persistence of abuse and silence is exactly why films like After the Hunt remain necessary today, as they force us to confront what too often goes unseen and unchallenged.
After the Hunt is divisive — I can’t remember the last time a film had such a powerful effect on its audiences. From Venice to New York to London, both critics and audiences seem unable to agree on what the film represents. Some find it too on the nose, lacking subtlety; others see it as ambiguous, never quite certain of its stance. To me, it finds the perfect balance. Guadagnino’s film explores morality, forcing audiences to confront their own judgments — a confrontation that is rarely comfortable — but, as the film reminds us, “not everything is supposed to make you comfortable.”
Life is rarely crystal clear; it’s never just black or white, but everything that exists in between. It’s as much about what is said as what is left unsaid, and the film is carefully crafted to show the audience only what they want us to hear and see, only fragments of the whole. This selective storytelling is a deliberate stylistic choice, reflecting the partial truths and uncertainties of real life. You never get the full picture; you only get what people allow you to, and it’s rarely the whole story. The camera moves from one image to another as quickly as it can linger; ambient sounds overlap with conversations, shots fall out of focus, and close-ups fixate on faces, hands, and eyes. It’s present in every moment, every action, every conversation, every glance. All these choices immerse us in uncertainty. They force the audience to question what’s real, what’s performed, and what’s deliberately hidden, even when it shouldn’t. This is perhaps the most confronting aspect for audiences: some are forced to face the ways they judge, doubt, and sometimes fail each other.
After the Hunt isn’t there to undermine women’s struggles when it comes to sexual assaults; it’s here to mirror the reality we live in. The truth is right there from the very beginning, but Nora Garrett wrote a brilliant and complex script that will raise doubt for the whole 139 minutes — it’s the central element of its narrative.
Once the opening credits hit the screen, avid cinephiles will notice the obvious nod to Woody Allen’s cinema — a choice that quickly puts the audience on edge. Considering Allen’s history and behaviour, the reference feels provocative and unsettling, signaling from the very beginning that the film isn’t interested in comfort; it will challenge its audiences’ assumptions about morality and judgment at the intersections of art, abuse, and complicity.
After the Hunt is built to deliberately keep the audience off balance, and the scariest part is how effective it is. From the moment Maggie enters Alma’s bathroom at the beginning of the film, the camera lingers on the door, signaling that something important is about to happen. But what? She discovers an envelope tucked into a cabinet, filled with photographs and newspaper clippings, and nervously takes a piece, leaving viewers to question not only the contents but Maggie’s intentions. This early tension establishes the film’s central mechanism: doubt, which is never simply about truth, but about how we, as an audience, respond to it. The unease deepens when Maggie confides in Alma about her assault. Her story is hesitant and fragmented; she refuses to go into details, insisting that the assault itself is what matters. Garrett’s writing makes clear that the discomfort doesn’t come from Maggie’s honesty, but from our own expectations of how trauma should be presented. We are confronted with the question of why we feel entitled to judge, highlighting the film’s moral interrogation. This ambiguity grows when Maggie explains she came to Alma because of her history. The phrasing is loaded: is it Alma’s feminist stance, her past, or her position at the university, like Maggie suggests? Her nervous attempt to clarify only intensifies the uncertainty, placing both Alma and the audience in a moral grey zone. Doubt becomes almost a character in itself, guiding how we interpret every glance, pause, and gesture.
The tension persists when Maggie recounts her attempt to go to a clinic, halted by security cameras outside. She argues the footage could serve as proof, yet the logic feels fragile, even desperate. Still, it is entirely human: Garrett and Guadagnino show how women internalize disbelief, compelled to construct evidence of their own suffering to be taken seriously. This is mirrored in the dinner scene, when Alma warns Maggie not to speak to a reporter, suggesting that people in power, mostly older white men, will see her as radioactive. The caution feels both protective and dismissive, further blurring our certainty about who believes whom and why. Maggie’s later disappointment that Alma doesn’t call after the article appears adds another layer of ambiguity, raising the question of her motives: is she seeking justice, or the validation of Alma’s approval? Each scene builds on the last, layering uncertainty to make the audience confront the same moral questions the characters face, but “if it’s real to you, it’s real,” isn’t it?
Hank’s presence escalates the tension, first through a hallway confrontation marked by anger and violence, and later in Alma’s apartment, where he pushes boundaries of consent despite Alma’s protests. Here, the film confirms Maggie’s story in the most visceral way, but if you feel you needed this scene to believe her, that in itself is unsettling — it forces the audience to confront how easily we doubt survivors until we’re witnesses, and reminds us that skepticism can make us complicit in the very systems of abuse the film critiques. Even in the final moments, the tension between Alma and Maggie lingers: what is said and left unsaid, as well as the gestures and glances, all underscore the complexity of trust, belief, and morality. Garrett and Guadagnino construct a world in which doubt dominates not because the characters are dishonest, but because the audience is forced to confront its own judgments, biases, and inability to face uncomfortable truths. We are so focused on seeking the truth of others that we often avoid acknowledging our own complicity, uncertainty, or moral blind spots. In every scene, uncertainty is the lens through which the story is told, making After the Hunt as morally provocative as it is emotionally compelling.
People are walking out of screenings outraged, confused, or uncomfortable, and that’s precisely how it should be. The film isn’t there to make you feel good; it’s meant to shake you up — to make you confront the unease. Audiences today seem less willing to take that in. Many are seeking polished, unrealistic stories and characters because it’s easier. The truth is, we often can’t bear to see ourselves on screen or to recognise that some of those outrageous behaviours are real, that this is how some people truly act. So, we bury our heads in the sand. While I understand that some people go to the movies to be entertained and escape the world around them, cinema is also a powerful medium for exploring delicate yet necessary topics and sparking essential conversations, and After the Hunt surely does. In a world still struggling with denial, moral uncertainty, and silence, films like this remind us why we must keep watching, questioning, and talking.
Not everyone has to like the film, but its importance cannot be denied. We’re living in an era as blurry as this film is, where everything is constantly questioned and appearances are meticulously maintained. After the Hunt captures this imperfect world perfectly, it holds up a mirror to the uncertainty and complexity of our lives. And in that uncertainty, conversations become more important than ever. During the Venice Film Festival press conference, Julia Roberts stated that “we’re kind of losing the art of conversation in humanity right now,” and she’s right. After the Hunt reminds us why that matters. If life is never entirely clear, neither are the truths this film presents, and perhaps that’s precisely why it matters. We can’t turn away from the discomfort; we have to face it. Films like this do more than provoke; they challenge the ease with which we allow injustice to persist. In seeing ourselves reflected on screen, we’re reminded of all the conversations we need to have in the world outside the theatre.
After the Hunt opens in theaters today from Amazon MGM.
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