After the Hunt

Guadagnino is holding a kind of mirror up to our society, hysterically busy with political and moral correctness, and its reflection shows a deeply distorting image. The feeling that something is wrong right from the start finds it's perfect expression in Alma's heavy pain attacks, well played by Julia Roberts. And yes, it's not supposed to make us feel more comfortable than her. There's no one to route for, not a single character showing integrity, ( maybe with the exception of Michael Stuhlbarg as Alma's husband), a lot of moral hypocrisy, cynicism, egocentric, manipulative behaviour all over the place, and we, the audience, is being left disoriented, not knowing if the scandal everyone is so obsessed with has really happened or not. It's not shown to us, which I think is a genius trick.

You are forced to make up your own mind, exhausting for some of course.

Guadagnino refuses to give simple answers to the complicated experimental setup he is questioning here from different angles. In addition to that you'll even find a dark comedy about unfulfilled desires underneath.

The result seems to upset many people, i on the contrary was grateful to find a lot of inspiring and controversial topics to think about in the screenplay and Guadagnino's efficient direction.

"After the hunt" could have been excellent. Acting was incredible, and the story was interesting. However, the entire film was distracted by a very obnoxious score. And random cinematography. Overall, the film was well done however these shortcomings distracted so much that it took away from the entire movie. Julia Roberts was phenomenal, as was Andrew Garfield.

After the Hunt creates a very interesting world to step into, with some wonderful performances, especially from Julia Robert's. A cast of unlikeable cold characters in a set to the backdrop of a mostly cold or rainy Yale campus is not overly familiar or cliche, and therefore intriguing.

The craft of the film is there, it's hard not to admire the film making and cinematography at work. However some of the sound choices from the ticking clock at the start to pieces of music played loudly over dialogue are a bold choice that for me did not pay off, and feel lack any reasoning apart from a desire a be different.

The real flaw is the many veins of ideas the film has, but it feels unsure as to what it is trying to say, if anything at all. It wants us to question and challenge the ideas it highlights as those in the film do in their philosophy class, however we are not sure where to start, or what emotion or idea it has really been called into question. It also felt about 5 years late to the me too conversation.

Overall I think it's not a bad film, it creates a world, it has some humour that's well executed and great performances. However it feels its main objective is trying really hard to make us question the big topics it raises, but that's sadly where it falls down.

To get through this movie, but I did.

You keep waiting for the pace to pick up and bring the story forward, but it never happens.

You keep wishing is there something behind door number 2,3 and 4. There is not The acting is superb. Julia Roberts is very good.

If you have absolutely nothing else to watch, turn off the tv and do something else.

I was drawn to After The Hunt because of Luca Guadagnino and the stellar cast, but once the first Woody Allen-esque scene is done, the film takes an extremely slow and uninteresting pace that makes the dialogue and characters somewhat infuriating to understand or even care about throughout the film. If it had been a faster pace, tighter script, and focused on the core story, it could've been an enjoyable watch. The acting is still really solid and the shots are beautiful with a score that is tantalizing, as always in Luca's films.