Review: After The Hunt

After The Hunt | Director: Luca Guadagnino | Cast: Julia Roberts, Michael Stuhlbarg, Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri | Prime Video 

Retribution or vengeance? Reality or imagined truth? The feminist generation gap is a real thing in After the Hunt, Luca Guadagnino’s latest psychological masterpiece. At the heart of it, like the ticking clock in the background music, is a secret that Alma (Julia Roberts) has tried to hide, just like her sudden bursts of pain.

It’s a secret that drives everything she does, and what her student Maggie does. Maggie says, “I was confused. Did I want to be you or be with you?” It’s a relationship that defines the movie, which is set in Yale, with Alma and her once-romantic partner Hank. Both are competing for tenure and only one of them can get it. Hank is a handsy, talkative, white man, so apparently less likely to get the tenure in the new (and now dated) age of diversity and inclusion. The mysterious Alma has a husband (Michael Stuhlbarg) with infinite patience, worrying taste in loud music, and an impressive array of recipes from around the world. And Maggie is the human bomb who is about to blow up this cosy, chic world. There are many pleasures in After the Hunt, apart from Roberts’ stunning cheekbones. There is dialogue that makes you feel intelligent even as it is spoken, great interiors, and very fashionable clothes.