NYFF Review: ‘After the Hunt’ is a Muddled Attempt at Provocation from Luca Guadagnino

There are a lot of thorny issues being discussed in After the Hunt, the Opening Night selection of the 63rd New York Film Festival. Cancel culture, #METOO, campus culture, upper class privilege, and more are on the docket. Any one idea could have been used to make a compelling film. Together, this should be a work just overflowing with great elements. Sadly, it winds up all being dealt with on a surface level, pushing buttons and trying to provoke a response, instead of earning one. Usually, NYFF kicks off with a very strong flick. Unfortunately, that’s not the case this year, as the movie falls very flat.

After the Hunt wants to be a discussion starter, to be sure. Most of the characters in the film spend much of the running time discussing the issues within the narrative. However, they too often are being dully abrasive. Luca Guadagnino seems content to be pleased just bringing up campus ethics and power dynamics, instead of actually doing much with the conversations at hand. It ultimately doesn’t serve the cast, the screenplay, or the movie on the whole.

At Yale, the philosophy department is about to be rocked by accusations. Before that, we’re introduced to professor Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts), who’s doted on not just by her students, including Maggie Price (Ayo Edebiri), but also colleague Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield), as well as her husband Frederik Mendelssohn (Michael Stuhlbarg). Alma and Hank are both up for tenure, something the friends find amusing but also causes a bit of tension. Alma withholds affection to all, making them compete even more so for it, while Hank is a shameless flirt with both faculty and students. At a party, they debate the generational divide, before Hank walks Maggie home.

When Alma finds Maggie the next day at her doorstep, she’s accusing Hank of being inappropriate with her. She tells her what happened, though when Alma isn’t as supportive as she hopes, Maggie storms off. Hank, on the other hand, claims nothing happened except for him brining up that Maggie is plagiarizing one of her papers for him. He feels like he’s already been given a death sentence, having been accused of sexual misconduct by a queer black woman, even as he points out her family’s immense wealth, compared to his more meager means. These two become dueling presences in Alma’s life, which impacts her relationships with both, her past with Hank, as well as a secret that Maggie has come across about Alma. Through it all, her chilly relationship with Frederik continues to be frosty, frustrating him.

Julia Roberts does very nice work as a fairly blunt ice queen. She’s impressive, even if Guadagnino isn’t supporting her too well, which goes for everyone else as well. Roberts gets to stare down her co-stars in a way that’s appropriately chilling, though when cracks begin to show, her character becomes more inconsistent. Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield are not served well, as neither has their characters explored in a satisfying manner. Edebiri does a solid enough job, though the narrative requires Maggie to do some baffling things. Garfield doesn’t get enough time to show both the charismatic flirt and the self satisfied academic that Hank is supposed to be. Michael Stuhlbarg is somewhat wasted, though he does get the single funniest scene in the flick, involving going in and out of a kitchen. The only cast member having a clearly good time is Chloë Sevigny, even if her character, a fellow faculty member that’s friends with Alma, barely functions within the narrative besides to move things along on occasion. She’s at least having fun with the material. Supporting players here include Thaddea Graham, Lio Mehiel, Will Price, and more.

Director Luca Guadagnino is admittedly hit or miss for me, and while something like Challengers last year was one of my favorite films of 2025, this hear is one of his bigger misfires. The screenplay from Nora Garrett tees up a lot of potentially great scenes, though Guadagnino continually undercuts them. Whether it’s his obnoxious ticking clock, the dour and often antiseptic nature of scenes, or the epilogue that feels like a clear studio note, he’s not in control of the material like he usually is. Whatever was on the page from Garrett, which attracted some major talent, just never translates under his direction. Even the cinematography from Malik Hassan Sayeed and the score from the usually unimpeachable Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross falls short.

After the Hunt is a disappointment, plain and simple. When you assemble this many talented people, it’s fair to expect better. It really does feel like it was the wrong pairing of material and filmmaker, so with someone else at the helm, this could have potentially slapped. Instead, we’ve wound up with a flawed work that doesn’t open the 2025 New York Film Festival with a bang, but instead with a whimper. Alas.

SCORE: ★★