It’s not often that the font of a film’s opening credits, itself, is a provocation.
But in Luca Guadagnino’s confused but deeply absorbing “After the Hunt,” the white Windsor Light condensed letters against a black background, inserted in alphabetical order and accompanied by soft jazz playing, is instantly recognizable as the style of a Woody Allen film debut.
In the jugular to follow in “After the Hunt,” where Guadagnino will playfully spin a twisting narrative of alleged sexual assault, cancel culture, privilege in education and Gen Z oppression, the credits aren’t so much an opening salvo as they are an introductory wink.
Like many of Allen’s films, “After the Hunt” is set among a well-educated, self-involved class. It takes place around Yale University. But unlike Allen’s brooding, existentialist, chattering characters, Guadagnino’s cocktail party collection of professors and students is more conspiratorial and unpleasant.
It featured a philosophy professor, Alma Imhoff, her friend and department colleague, Hank Gibson, and Imhoff’s star student, a Ph.D. Are included. A student named Maggie Resnick, who accuses Hank of sexual assault after a party at Alma’s house.
Guadagnino’s film, shot by Malik Hassan Saeed, is gloomy and flatly lit and full of reflections. Beneath these mundane surfaces, the central characters of “After the Hunt” — a group of singularly attractive actors who have squandered their natural charisma here — attack each other over everything from Foucault to feminism in a psychological battle set in the #MeToo minefield.
That, at least, is the promise of “after the hunt.” But Guadagnino’s dull and languid film, written by Nora Garrett, only fits as the conversation piece it wants to be. Its plot twists can be hasty or implausible, and the film increasingly feels like a tight thread of ideas and pieces strung together.
Yet I also enjoyed the sting of “After the Hunt.” Although it has a strong anti-war awakening, Guadagnino’s film is more about how seemingly completely different generations have much more in common than it seems. Cultural debates depicted in films are often tinged with moral superiority, but that is not the case here. Everyone in “After the Hunt” is kind of rotten.
This is particularly unusual for Roberts, whose Alma is a far more complex character than we normally deal with. Alma is distinguished, highly intelligent, ambitious, and hard to read. Her husband, a psychiatrist named Frederick, worships her, but his affection is less obvious.
But lacking his natural enthusiasm, Roberts’ restraint in the role comes across as tired. It adds some distinct style to “After the Hunt,” but it’s hard not to imagine someone like Cate Blanchett in this part.
“When did hurting someone become a grave sin?” Hank asks at the party that starts the movie.
There is a hint of what Guadagnino is going to do shortly after, after Maggie accuses him of assault. Alma visits a distraught Hank at a local restaurant. Even though he’s exposed what’s true and what’s fiction in Maggie’s account, it’s hard not to notice the mirrors that surround Hank.
The real mirror of “After the Hunt” is Alma and Maggie. Edebiri is here a kind of stand-in for Gen Z, and her case expands to include broader issues of inclusivity and otherness. As things escalate and Maggie’s case leads to increasing intensity on campus and in Alma’s personal life, Alma goes from being Maggie’s mentor to something more like an enemy. But Alma’s own past begins to play a role in the outcome, adding a new frame in “After the Hunt” that casts Alma and Maggie’s plight in a different light.
Is this a good time? Not particularly, although Garfield is great at anger. Glib entries don’t help. In one scene, when Alma meets a fellow faculty member at a bar, Smith’s song plays and she is surprised that Morrissey’s tune is not illegal.
I’m not sure there’s much to say about “After the Hunt” other than a shrug. But “After the Hunt” deserves credit not for delving into these hot-button topics, but for trying to find its way through them. This is not a #MeToo procedural but a tragedy. When “optics over substance” control everyone, as one character laments, no one lives happily ever after.
The Amazon MGM release “After the Hunt” is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language and some sexual content. Running time: 139 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
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