Film Review: AFTER THE HUNT: Luca Guadagnino Opens Up the Floor for Discussion in a Very Timely Drama [NYFF 2025]
After the Hunt Review
After the Hunt (2025) Film Review from the 63rd Annual New York Film Festival, a movie directed by Luca Guadagnino, written by Nora Garrett and starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Chloe Sevigny, Ayo Edebiri, Michael Stuhlbarg, Thaddea Graham, Will Price, Bella Glanville, Lio Mehiel, Ariyan Kassam, Frankie Ferrari, Christine Dye, Nigel Finnissy, Summer Knox and Cameron Krogh Stone.
Filmmaker Luca Guadagnino’s tense thriller, After the Hunt, starts out fierce and ferocious and ends on a more humanistic note that makes it one of the most intriguing films of the year. This film is anchored by the best Julia Roberts performance in 25 years. Roberts almost single-handedly takes the bull by the horns and creates a genuine, fragile, yet strong, college professor at a prestigious Ivy League University who finds that life is much more complex than even the most ambitious philosophy student could successfully suggest.
Roberts’s character, Alma Imhoff, is on the verge of tenure at her college when a can of worms opens up in the form of a sexual assault allegation against Alma’s colleague by a student Alma is mentoring, Maggie Price (Ayo Edebiri, sporting a nose ring in a multi-faceted performance). Guadagnino builds tension, but the beauty of this film is not knowing where he will take us through the intelligent dialogue and sharp script that he has at his helm.
Andrew Garfield serves as the man in question, Hank Gibson, who seems to have some interesting philosophies of his own at a party early on in the film. Hank could also have more personal feelings towards Alma than he lets on to. Ditto for Maggie who seems to start dressing in the same type of outfits Alma wears which suggests something far stranger than these characters’ interactions suggest.
Alma is married to Frederik Mendelssohn (a splendidly ordinary, but intriguing, Michael Stuhlbarg). Frederik is slightly ambitious although not as sharp as Alma is in some respects. Alma’s colleague, Dr. Kim Sayers (a solemn Chloe Sevigny) is a character who may not be willing to help Alma out in tough times and has York Peppermint Patties close to her desk. This film takes the story on with just a small amount of plot details revealed to get all these characters’ blood flowing. Hank comes up to Alma’s class and screams at her in front of her students. Is Hank guilty of assaulting Maggie who has come to rely on Alma for help in trying to report his mistreatment of her?
Since the plot is revealed in a way that suggests this is a thriller, it is a surprise that Guadagnino has something much more complicated in mind. He grounds the story in reality with plot twists that bring out the worst in the characters. Is forgiveness possible or is it about each of our characters’ big life moves to either clear their name or advance their careers? What does Alma do when she has nothing left to lose (as the lyrics in the song at the end of the film belt out)?
With credits in the font Woody Allen made famous, this is a movie for our times. Is it a great film? No. Is it one of the most powerfully constructed premises of the decade? Yes! As Alma finds herself on the brink of losing everything that she has worked so hard for, Hank appears and could just set the record straight in terms of whether or not he was capable of committing the crime at the movie’s center. This film isn’t about taking sides. Rather, it’s about the thoughts that enter our minds in particular situations and how they consume us as human beings.
After the Hunt toys with the viewer in rewarding ways. Don’t be fooled by Guadagnino’s road to salvation for Alma because this is not just another redemption tale, it’s a portrait of the world in which we live and the higher education system that sets expectations for us that don’t always meet the true expectations of the real world.
Roberts flies away with this character and never looks back. She beautifully delivers lines and monologues to characters like Frederik and Maggie and probes her character’s life choices and her difficult decisions. When Maggie slaps Alma at one point, one can’t help but think someone had to do it, but we feel sympathy for Alma’s plight as one scenario after another gets more volatile and the end results will certainly have audiences buzzing.
If After the Hunt ends with a bit of calmness which was unexpected, it hints to its real purpose with a soothing song by The Smiths and a very smoothly orchestrated score that hits the beats the movie’s story wants to expose to the viewer almost to a science. Garfield is confident in a performance that is relentless enough to almost make one try to understand his side of the story even if Maggie has the more compelling argument that could have been amplified but wait…I’m giving too much away. Edebiri more than holds her own in such stellar company.
After the Hunt is an assured drama. This film’s last shot of a twenty-dollar bill could be significant of what the characters’ lives all boil down to. For all the action, inaction, confusion and despair, at the end of the film, there’s a small measure of peace that a mere twenty-dollar bill can buy. This film does what no other picture this year has done – it opens up the floor for intelligent conversations that will generate many different opinions. I don’t think it’s a great film even though it does what a great film should do. But, as thought-provoking entertainment, it gets the job done.
Rating: 8/10
Leave your thoughts on this After the Hunt review and the film below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook‘s patrons. Readers seeking more New York Film Festival news can visit our New York Film Festival Page, our Film Festival Page, and our Film Festival Facebook Page.
Readers seeking more film reviews can visit our Movie Review Page, our Movie Review Twitter Page, and our Movie Review Facebook Page.
Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Mobile App, Google News, Apple News, Feedly, Twitter, Faceboo
Related Articles
