"After the Hunt" follows a college professor confronting challenging dilemmas both at work and in her personal life. When a star student accuses a colleague of wrongdoing, she must navigate the turmoil while also grappling with a haunting secret from her past that risks emerging and altering her future.
Trivia:
1. The lead actress, known primarily for comedy, took the role to showcase her versatility in dramatic acting and received critical acclaim for her performance.
2. The film's college campus scenes were shot at a real university with a storied history, lending authentic academic atmosphere.
3. The screenplay was inspired by the writer's own experiences as a college instructor dealing with ethical dilemmas, grounding the story in genuine emotional conflicts.
Critics' Reviews
70
“Cancel culture” is a minefield. And those who claim that it exists seem to define it in one way only: being erased from public and professional life without due process or any hope for a comeback. Even though many of those who lost their status (or got “cancelled”) in recent years have merely faced the consequences of their proven actions, the originators of the saying managed to pull a great trick: these days, we are all using the term unironically somehow (whether we agree with cancel culture’s existence or not), and thus, inadvertently doing the bidding for the narrative. Why is this intro into the murkiness of “cancel culture” necessary in order to talk about Luca Guadagnino’s sharp and well-calibrated campus psychodrama “After the Hunt,” you might rightfully ask. That’s because—at least at first glance—those are the treacherous waters that Guadagnino and first-time screenwriter Nora Garrett set out to navigate.
60
In one of the film’s most gripping and unsettling scenes, Hank and Alma have a clandestine meeting where he refutes the charges, claiming that Maggie has been plagiarising her thesis and that she’s a mediocre student who’s only at Yale through nepotism. Garfield is brilliantly loathsome here, devouring Indian food with faux affability and veering wildly from bitterness to charm to desperation.
50
After the Hunt is an unruly but rarely boring culture-war sampler born from the intellectual partnership of Luca Guadagnino and first-time screenwriter Nora Garrett. Inspired by Garrett's online philosophy courses during the pandemic, the film attempts a reflection on morality through a low-stakes psychological thriller about well-dressed academics embroiled in allegations of sexual assault, exploring themes of race, gender, and privilege in higher education with a nuanced complexity that often feels more like edgy podcaster musings than concrete examination. Julia Roberts delivers a standout performance as Alma, the ice queen Dean-in-waiting navigating the stormy dynamics between her doctoral protege and a controversial colleague, anchoring this sophisticated yet sometimes toothless critique of academia and identity politics.
Full Cast of After the Hunt
Chloë Sevigny
Kim
Fans of Chloë Sevigny might appreciate her role in 'After the Hunt' due to her nuanced portrayal of complex emotions and subtle charisma, traits that have defined some of her most iconic performances, such as in '
Kids' or '
American Psycho'. While those earlier roles often presented her as a youthful rebel or a femme fatale, in 'After the Hunt' she brings a mature depth, embodying a character who grapples with internal conflicts in a more understated, reflective manner. An interesting detail about the casting is that Sevigny herself was involved in shaping her character's wardrobe and mannerisms, aiming for authenticity that resonates with the film's gritty atmosphere.
Andrew Garfield
Hank Gibson
Ayo Edebiri
Maggie Resnick
Thaddea Graham
Katie
Julia Roberts
Alma Imhoff
Crew of After the Hunt
Full backstage crew list →