After the Hunt review: Julia Roberts and Ayo Edebiri go head to head in taut thriller

With After the Hunt, Luca Guadagnino pivots away from his recent Challengers and Queer to offer a taut psychological thriller where nothing is clear-cut.

Guadagnino’s film begins with respected Yale University professor Alma (Julia Roberts) readying herself to host an evening soirée for her colleagues and top students. Among them are Alma’s colleague and close friend, Hank (Andrew Garfield), and Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), a young gay philosophy student who is Alma’s protégée.

This trio are the key pieces in Guadagnino’s cinematic game of chess. The evening is one of fine wine, indoor smoking, and philosophical ponderings, including a student suggesting that Alma’s potential promotion to academic tenure would not be due to her extensive career, but rather because she ticks the so-called diversity box of being a woman. The declaration sets the tone for the perspective-shifting story of blurred lines and accusations that is to come. 

The next day, Maggie is not at her desk, nor replying to Alma’s messages. Instead, she’s crouched in Alma’s stairwell, rain-soaked and harbouring an accusation that forever changes the dynamic. Maggie tells her senior that an intoxicated Hank dropped her off back home, had a nightcap and “overstepped the line”. Hack adamantly denies that accusation and has his own story that he caught Maggie plagiarising her thesis, but because her rich parents make sizable donations to Yale, he knew she’d face no consequences.

This trio are the key pieces in Guadagnino’s cinematic game of chess

Alma is caught between the pair, having to decide where her loyalties lie. Simultaneously, ghosts from her past float back into her life, complicating things to a claustrophobic degree. What transpires is a gripping drama that is electric with Guadagnino’s taut direction; slow zooms and close framing dictate focus on micro movements. Gesticulating hands and slow blinks give clues, but as suspicions grow, doubt sets in. Guadagnino creates a film that echoes the truth of our world; those who bravely come forward with their stories are met with forensic questioning from every angle as their claims are scrutinised and their credibility is questioned. 

At the centre of this chaotic spiderweb is Roberts and Edebiri, who exquisitely ground After the Hunt in a tangible tension. Alma basks in the attention she gets from Maggie and Frank, both clearly infatuated with her. As Maggie walks the line between wanting to be like Alma and be with Alma, their student-teacher relationship is challenged when Maggie pulls a checkmate move on her. Edebiri has proven her comedic chops, but with After the Hunt, she showcases herself as a seriously talented dramatic actor. 

After the Hunt isn’t striving for a conclusive verdict

Additionally, supporting roles are well handled by Garfield and Guadagnino staple Michael Stuhlbarg (Timothée Chalamet’s wise father in Call Me By Your Name), who is Alma’s therapist husband. Also, Maggie’s partner (Lío Mehiel) gives Roberts the chance to bring out Alma’s spiky side, which Maggie meets with ferocity.

Guadagnino’s well-calibrated thriller may be about so-called cancel culture on the surface, but there’s so much more depth to the film. Nora Garrett’s script isn’t perfect; there is a messiness to some of the dialogue and underexplored sides to these characters, but the film is rewarding in its refusal to reach a singular truth. Highlighting the complexity of human existence, overlapping motivations, and morals, After the Hunt isn’t striving for a conclusive verdict of guilty or not guilty – Guardagnino asks for more from his audience. 

After the Hunt was screened at the London Film Festival. The film is out in UK cinemas on 17 October.

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