Words by JANE CROWTHER
Luca Guadagnino’s latest is about cancel culture writ large – its opening titles recall Woody Allen and a bar jukebox plays Morrissey, while a philosophy lecture focuses on Foucault’s theory of a Panopticon state where all are under surveillance from society. Those under watch here are a group of intelligentsia; Alma (Julia Roberts) a Yale Yale philosophy professor hoping for tenure who is married to a snarky therapist, Fred (Michael Stuhlbarg), and friends with a flirty department colleague, Hank (Andrew Garfield). Alma, Fred notes, likes to surround herself with people who worship her on bended knee, so the faculty party at their elegant home is also attended by her starry-eyed PhD student, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri). Academia talk immediately turns gendered and political when Alma’s incoming promotion is questioned for whether she will get it for being worthy, or for being a woman. It’s against this primed beginning that Maggie makes an accusation of sexual assault against Hank, prompting a spiral of secrets, lies and social politics that will destroy careers. Especially as the school’s Dean of humanities admits to being ‘in the business of optics’…
Directing a script by Nora Garrett, Guadagnino’s deliberately provocative film which provides no real answers focuses on hands as characters talk, confess and argue; as though their physical communication tells more truths than their verbal. With this much philosophising and privileged chatter there’s certainly plenty to unpack. And there’s numerous layers to the portrayal of each of the flawed players. Stuhlbarg, so good in Call Me By Your Name, continues to scene-steal with monologues from sofas as a surface-patient man who hides a bitterness and petulance from participating in a marriage that isn’t all it seems. Garfield’s turn from Byron-esque hot teacher to snivelling mess, and possibly worse, is a gradual disintegration that feels the most authentic, while Edebiri manages to sell the ethical twists required of her character, a rich girl whose entitlement is indiscriminate. Chloë Sevigny’s supporting role as a faculty therapist is a study in quiet betrayal.
But the picture, unsurprisingly, is Roberts’. Dressed in Princess Di white jeans and blazer, her hair a blanching blonde, Alma, in her hands, is a switch-and-bait, a mystery, an ice queen and a woman dropping balls. Yes, she can eviscerate a student who questions her in class and tell the younger generation that ‘not everything is supposed to make you comfortable’, but she’s nursing a secret and an illness that are both incrementally weakening her. And she’s afraid of the consequences despite her philosophical filibustering. By turns Roberts is seductive, morally dubious, sympathetic and ultimately vibrates with rage. It’s the sort of compelling performance that awards bodies will likely recognise even if the film is difficult to parse. Garrett and Guadagnino are not interested in easy answers and their ambiguity frustrates as much as it intrigues.
Words by JANE CROWTHER
Photographs courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
After the Hunt premiered at the 82nd Venice Film Festival
In cinemas 20 October
