Luca Guadagnino is one of my favorite filmmakers working today. Challengers and Call Me By Your Name are, in my opinion, two of the greatest films of the last decade. And even the director’s lesser films like A Bigger Splash and Bones and All still have a lot to offer audiences. And I’d heard his latest film, After the Hunt, was the director’s first big misfire, after the film premiered earlier this year at the Venice Film Festival. So I had to temper my expectations, but I still remained optimistic because I couldn’t imagine a world where I hated a Luca Guadagnino film. And luckily, I still don’t hate a Guadagnino film. But this one has got a couple problems that bring the entire experience down.

Alma (Julia Roberts) is a philosophy professor at Yale. She and her colleague Hank (Andrew Garfield) are both up for tenure, and they’ve always had a flirty banter, even though Alma is married to therapist Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg). Alma’s current favorite student (Ayo Edebiri) comes to her shaken, saying Hank drunkenly assaulted her. This puts Alma in an uncomfortable situation, wanting to support her prized pupil, who may harbor romantic feelings for her, and also not wanting to throw her friend and secret crush under the bus. Complications ensue.

I decidedly did not care for Ari Aster’s Eddington earlier this year because it felt like the kind of movie that wanted to be very of the moment and zeitgeisty, but had nothing remarkable to say about the world around it other than ‘everyone is stupid and bad.’ And I can see why people are having a similar problem with After the Hunt. Nobody here is particularly likable. Everyone is dishonest, opportunistic, selfish and some are outright cruel. And while that’s kind of just how life is, when a narrative lacks a single angle to latch onto emotionally, everything becomes a bit beside the point. As a result, I struggle to understand what Guadagnino is actually saying with this movie. Now, I have only seen the film once, and maybe if I rewatch it, the themes and character motivations will make more sense. But as it stands, this is all a bit baffling. And it’s unfortunate because there’s so much to like here.

Julia Roberts has not been this good in a long time. This character lets her tap into what she does best – there’s charm but an air of mystery to her, and we’re always looking at her with a raised eyebrow. There’s a lot for her to play emotionally and this character’s motivations are always fascinating. She has strong chemistry with Andrew Garfield, which gives their increasingly tense relationship some emotional weight. Garfield is the closest someone is in this movie to feeling miscast. There’s empathy in his portrayal and we’re not sure how we’re supposed to feel about this character for a long time. Garfield keeps us on our toes, and I liked his performance, but it’s easy to imagine other actors proving more effective in this role.

Ayo Edebiri is very good here as well. I’ve enjoyed seeing her pivot into more dramatic roles after primarily knowing her for comedies. I went into this thinking the Maggie character would be the emotional core of this story, or the person we’re supposed to root for, but by the time we reach the end, everything becomes more muddled and complicated than that. Michael Stuhlbarg, once again, is the secret weapon of a Luca Guadagnino movie. He’s so good here as Alma’s exasperated, somewhat smug husband. I also enjoyed Chloë Sevigny as Kim, a psychiatrist who’s a colleague of Alma’s. She may not have much to do, but she makes the most of every moment. 

Playwright/first time screenwriter Nora Garrett wrote the screenplay, and it’s most of why this film doesn’t work. Sections are very intense and thought provoking, but the pacing meanders and the film is ultimately too long. Cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed shot this, and it’s the first time he’s worked with Guadagnino. There’s some interesting camerawork, some long takes that I enjoyed, but also some choices that don’t work – one involving a moment near the end of the film with Roberts and Stuhlbarg. You’ll know it when you see it. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross return to compose another Luca Guadagnino score and it’s certainly no Challengers. However, the choice to use the Woody Allen font in the opening credits felt like a hilarious and astute choice. If nothing else, Luca deserves credit for that.

There’s so much I like about After the Hunt, so much that it becomes deeply frustrating when it doesn’t quite come together. The performances are all terrific and the story is intriguing but the messaging is so vague and muddled and it’s difficult to determine what this film is trying to say about cancel culture, feminism, race, higher academia, class, privilege or anything else. Everybody here is kind of terrible and unredeemable and while that’s definitely the point, it’s difficult to connect to emotionally. Nora Garrett’s script holds you at that emotional distance so much, you may not leave having felt anything. Maybe if this released in a pre-Tàr, pre-Promising Young Woman world, it would’ve hit harder, but as it stands, the ideas here feel dated where they should feel important and essential.