After the Hunt — Review
Source: Amazon MGM Studios
I know it’s a sin to review a movie by dwelling on what the movie could have been or should have been instead of what it actually is, but I made the mistake of reading a draft of Nora Garrett’s screenplay for After the Hunt prior to seeing the film. The script was so enthralling, I couldn’t put it down. The characters were despicable yet deeply human. They were complex, layered, and captivating. The social commentary was timely and sharp without feeling preachy. The narrative flowed with momentum and precision, steadily building up tension. It even threw in a few surprises, but ones that still made sense narratively. It was everything I wanted Todd Field’s TÁR to be, and more. Traces of that brilliance still linger in the version that made it to screen, but they’re buried beneath a mass of baffling changes and ill-conceived stylistic choices, resulting in a film that feels scattered, bogged down, and bewildering.
Even for viewers who haven’t read the script, Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt still feels like a film marred by last-minute rewrites. Certain scenes play as if they were written by someone who didn’t fully understand the characters. As a result, the screenplay leans too heavily on telling rather than showing, weighed down by a muddled structure, perplexing character motivations, and too many loose ends left untied. Some ideas about racism and privilege feel shoehorned in and underdeveloped. Guadagnino’s film may simply be too ambitious, trying to tackle too many subjects at once and failing to make a strong statement about any of them.
In addition to the bewildering changes to the script, Guadagnino’s direction is also confounding. Right from the start, he takes a few bold stylistic swings, opening the film with an incessant ticking clock sound before cutting to opening credits that feel like either a Woody Allen homage or parody. But the puzzling stylistic choices don’t end there. After the Hunt is full of intense close-ups, with a plethora of prolonged shots of hands to the extent that one might begin to wonder if Guadagnino has a hand fetish. It feels like it’s intended to make a statement about body language and unspoken forms of communication, as well as the way people have a tendency to mimic other people’s gestures and mannerisms. But the execution is heavy-handed and distracting.
Source: Amazon MGM Studios
A score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is usually a highlight, especially in Guadagnino’s work, but here it feels oddly out of place and more intrusive than effective. Between the cinematography and the score, the film seems intent on making the audience uncomfortable, echoing Julia Roberts’ character Alma when she remarks, “Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable.” But what might have been a powerful guiding principle instead registers as little more than an excuse for incoherence.
Roberts herself delivers a commanding performance, imbuing Alma with gravitas even when the character makes choices that don’t fully add up. Andrew Garfield leans into loathsomeness as Alma’s colleague Hank, while Ayo Edebiri brings charisma and emotional depth to Maggie, Alma’s star student who later accuses Hank of sexual assault. The film plants the seeds for a fascinating exploration of power dynamics within the he-said, she-said framework. But by the second half, the narrative stumbles, unraveling instead of tightening and failing to stick the landing.
In the end, Guadagnino’s ambition is admirable, but After the Hunt falls under the weight of that ambition. The film aims to tackle a buffet of hot-button issues, but in trying to cover so much ground, it dilutes the potency of each one. What could have been a searing character study with incisive social commentary collapses into a cacophony of half-formed ideas and questionable decisions from both the characters and the filmmaker alike. It’s a messy, frustrating film that tries to do too much and ultimately feels like it never quite knows what it wants to say.
After the Hunt had its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival on September 26, 2025. It will receive a limited theatrical release on October 10th before expanding to more theaters on October 17th.
