Add After The Hunt to your Watch List for a crime drama fix

Things are really heating up for the upcoming awards season with “for your consideration” films arriving in my inbox, streaming queue, and mailbox, and I love it! I don’t take any of this for granted. It truly is my honor to be part of this industry. Today, I’m sharing my thoughts on After The Hunt, a psychological thriller set in a U.S. prestigious university. 

After The Hunt: A Crime Happens and Generations Divide:

My thanks to Amazon MGM Studios for sending me a DVD of After The Hunt for consideration as a member of the Music City Film Critics Association, in preparation for the upcoming awards season. All opinions are my own. 

About After The Hunt: Amazon MGM Studios / Directed By: Luca Guadagnino / Written By: Nora Garrett / Produced By: Brian Grazer, p.g.a., Luca Guadagnino, Jeb Brody, p.g.a., Allen Mandelbaum, p.g.a./Run Time: 2 hr 19 min/ Genre: Psychological Thriller/Rated: R for language and some sexual content and allegations some may find disturbing

Cast: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny

Film Synopsis: 

“From visionary filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, After The Hunt is a gripping psychological drama about a college professor (Julia Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Ayo Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Andrew Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light.”

My Thoughts:

As a long-time fan of Julia Roberts, I was excited to see her latest film arrive at my home. After reading the film synopsis, it brought to mind her role in Sleeping With The Enemy, another psychological thriller film from 1991, in which she was excellent, so I expected no less from her starring role in After The Hunt. 

Courtesy: Amazon MGM Studios

If you can get through the pompous academic speak, dialogue-heavy slow start, and the obvious adoration of Julia Roberts' character, Professor Alma Imhoff, the film does get better and lives up to the hype for the characters and the film itself. 

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, though; the beginning had me second-guessing if I wanted to invest two and a half hours in watching this. Since I am a film critic, I chose to see it through, and I’m glad I did, because all is not what it seems at Yale University as the muli-layered stories start to unfold.

Not Everything Is Supposed To Make You Comfortable:

Courtesy:Amazon MGM Studios

After The Hunt shines a light on campus culture in the late 90s, where professors seem to socialize with students at public places on campus, but also in their homes. There’s clearly a power dynamic going on, especially with one female student, Professor Imhoff’s star student, Maggie, who clearly idolizes her professor and seeks her approval and support. 

Maggie goes to Professor Imhoff with a startling sexual assault accusation against a fellow professor, Hank Gibson, played by Andrew Garfield, and let’s just say, Professor Imhoff didn’t handle the situation as well as she could have, setting off a riveting chain of events. 

I spent most of this film not believing the words coming out of the mouths of most people, except Professor Imhoff’s husband, Frederik Mendelesson, and with very good reason! Each character has secrets they are hiding, and one by one, they are exposed. 

There’s a slow and deliberate tempo to this film, with lots of gray area open to interpretation and speculation. This is a well-acted and directed film that dances around the #MeToo movement of the time without fully committing to it. Was this to show the huge generational divide on how we look at morality and power? Perhaps.

The Takeaway:

After The Hunt isn’t going to be for everyone. It’s a film full of great moments that didn’t quite land as a thriller with me. It’s more of a crime/drama. I’m glad I watched it to review here and be able to speak about it with other film fans, who also struggled to get through the opening sequence. If you like slow-moving stories with a twist at the end, you may enjoy After The Hunt, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. 

I hope you’ve enjoyed this film review. I’ll be back after Christmas with one more to finish off my 2025 reviews. You can also check out recent entertainment coverage here.

Wishing you Happy Holidays!

Please share in comments: Have you seen, or do you want to see, After The Hunt?