“After the Hunt”: Julia Roberts Teaches Moral Philosophy (and Steals Every Scene) While Luca Guadagnino Stares Into the Abyss — Beautifully

“After the Hunt”: Julia Roberts Teaches Moral Philosophy (and Steals Every Scene) While Luca Guadagnino Stares Into the Abyss — Beautifully

         ...Where espresso meets existential dread...

Last year, Luca Guadagnino gave us Queer — a gem of a film that distributors treated like an unwanted IKEA manual. 

This year, he returns on screens with After the Hunt, a psychological thriller dressed like a philosophy seminar.

It’s a story about power, desire, and moral murkiness — basically, what would happen if you put Tár, The Chair, and a therapy session in a blender and added a dash of Julia Roberts.

Enters Julia Roberts, PhD in Emotional Chaos:

Roberts plays Alma, a Yale professor whose life is perfectly arranged — the intellectual equivalent of a color-coded bookshelf — until one of her students confides she’s been harassed by a fellow professor.

The twist? 

Said professor isn’t some random academic — he’s Alma’s friend, admirer, and possibly the “what-if” she’s never fully deleted from her mental hard drive.

Cue chaos: Alma finds herself torn between loyalty, guilt, and that creeping suspicion that everyone — including herself — might be terrible.

Meanwhile, an old secret surfaces, because in a Guadagnino film the past has the annoying habit of showing up uninvited, like a drunk ex at a wedding.

Guadagnino’s Moral Maze (Now With Extra Aesthetics):

Guadagnino doesn’t hand out moral verdicts — he serves up dilemmas, elegantly planted.

Instead of shouting “who’s right?”, 

the film murmurs, “darling, what even is truth?”,

while the camera lingers lovingly on glass reflections, 

silk blouses, and the occasional emotional breakdown.

The movie flirts with Woody Allen’s neurotic charm — even down to the typography of the credits — but filtered through Guadagnino’s signature sensual chaos. 

Think Manhattan, if everyone were better dressed and had unresolved trauma.

Julia Roberts, the Goddess of Ambiguity:

Now let’s talk about Julia Roberts — because how could we not?

She’s not just acting here; she’s conducting a masterclass in Elegant Existential Panic.

Her Alma is all steel and softness, intellect and insecurity — a woman who could deliver a devastating lecture on Aristotle while internally screaming, “Oh God, what if I’m complicit?”

Roberts turns ambiguity into an Olympic sport. Her smile — that legendary, economy-boosting smile — is now a shield, a weapon, and occasionally a scream in disguise.

She’s so good that the rest of the cast — Andrew Garfield, Ayo Edebiri, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Chloë Sevigny — orbit around her like beautifully dressed satellites whispering, “We’ll never be Julia.”

Sound, Fury, and Trent Reznor’s Existential Beats:

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross deliver a soundtrack that sounds like your conscience having a panic attack in 5/4 time.

Every note hums with anxiety, every beat reminds you that being a morally complex adult is exhausting — but at least, under Guadagnino’s eye, it looks stunning.

A Film That Doesn’t Solve Anything — Thank God!

After the Hunt doesn’t offer tidy answers or easy catharsis. It’s too busy making you question your ethics, your career choices, and possibly your dating history.

It’s a film about the tension between generations, the slipperiness of power, 

and how everyone, no matter how woke or wise, is capable of hypocrisy with excellent lighting.

Yes, the script occasionally leans into its own cleverness, but when a movie looks this good and has Julia Roberts performing moral gymnastics, who cares?

Final Thoughts: 4 out of 5 Philosophical Breakdowns.

Guadagnino has made a film that’s part thriller, part therapy, part think-piece in motion — a cinematic mirror that says: “You might be the problem, but you look great being it.”

And at the center of it all, Julia Roberts — incandescent, enigmatic, utterly magnetic — turning every scene into a meditation on desire, guilt, and killer hair.

After the Hunt doesn’t just hunt for truth. 

It stalks it slowly, beautifully, and in heels.

By Giulia Dobre

October 29th 2025

Buki

Sixteen Years and a Symphony Later: Todd Field Conducts Perfection in TÁR

 Bucharest, October 28th 2025.

It took Todd Field sixteen years to make another film 

— and frankly, if that’s how long it takes to produce something this good, 

we should all agree to wait patiently, quietly, 

perhaps in 4/4 time.

Watching TÁR feels like attending a concert where the conductor, the philosopher, and the psychoanalyst have formed an avant-garde trio, performing an aria on power, desire, and moral decay. 

It is, quite simply, a brilliant masterclass in cinema — elegant, merciless, and calibrated with Swiss-watch precision.

At the center of this disciplined chaos stands Cate Blanchett, 

delivering a performance so technically perfect 

it borders on the surgical. 

Every gesture, pause, and micro-tilt of her head seems measured with metronomic precision — as if her pulse itself had been rehearsed. 

She doesn’t play Lydia Tár; she dissects her, molecule by molecule, 

until what remains is a portrait of genius so lifelike 

it feels dangerous to touch. 

Watching Blanchett act 

is like watching someone conduct their own nervous system. It’s frighteningly good.

The supporting cast rises to the challenge. 

Noémie Merlant exudes the quiet brilliance of someone who already knows how the film will end 

but won’t spoil it, 

while Mark Strong projects that particular kind of male authority 

that thrives on being just slightly less competent than advertised — but exquisitely so.

Field’s decision to explore motherhood within a same-sex female couple feels both overdue and refreshingly un-didactic, 

as though he simply assumed audiences could handle nuance. 

(A bold assumption, in this century.)

The music, of course, is divine, especially in the scenes where Lydia commands the orchestra like a Nietzschean force of nature — half artist, half autocrat. 

One almost expects her to turn to the camera and conduct us, and we would obey without hesitation.

The locations are immaculate: Berlin rendered as a landscape of order and repression, every corridor an existential corridor. 

The compositions are so exact that Kubrick’s ghost may have given his spectral approval. 

This isn’t cinematography; it’s geometry with feelings.

And then comes the enigmatic young Russian musician 

— a mere narrative detail, perhaps, though in our current geopolitical climate, even her bow strokes seem to carry subtext. 

Coincidence? Probably. 

Symbolism? Definitely.

In the end, TÁR isn’t a film so much as an experience of intellectual submission. It doesn’t invite interpretation — it commands it. 

You leave the theater 

simultaneously humbled and exhilarated, 

wondering if you should applaud or apologize.

Sixteen years well spent, Mr. Field. 

If the next masterpiece requires another sixteen, 

we’ll wait 

— in silence, in reverence, and in perfect tempo.

Giulia Dobre

Bucharest

Here are some of the major awards and accolades received by the film TÁR (2022):

• At the National Society of Film Critics (NSFC), TÁR was named Best Picture of 2022. nationalsocietyoffilmcritics.com+1

• At the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), TÁR won Best Film, and Cate Blanchett won Best Actress for her role in TÁR. TheWrap+2awardsradar.com+2

• At the London Film Critics’ Circle Film Awards, TÁR won Film of the Year, Director of the Year (for Todd Field) and Actress of the Year (for Cate Blanchett). euronews+1

• At the Golden Globes (2023), TÁR received one win: Cate Blanchett won Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama. Golden Globes

• At the Palm Springs International Film Awards, Cate Blanchett was honored with the Desert Palm Achievement Award – Actress for her performance in TÁR. TheWrap

Kontinental ’25 : Comment expulser sa conscience (et autres passe-temps roumains)

 Kontinental ’25 :

Comment expulser sa conscience

(et autres passe-temps roumains)

La propriété. Ce mot tranquille, presque inoffensif, qui ne cherche qu’à savoir à qui vient le tour de ruiner la planète.

C’est le mot d’ordre implicite de Kontinental ’25, la dernière séance de spiritisme cinématographique de Radu Jude, où la crise d’identité éternelle de la Roumanie percute de plein fouet le capitalisme tardif — et, bien sûr, c’est le capitalisme qui gagne, puisqu’il est venu avec ses avocats.

Notre héroïne, Orsolya (Eszter Tompa, sainte patronne des âmes légèrement épuisées), est huissière à Cluj — qui, selon l’interlocuteur, se trouve soit en Transylvanie, soit dans un état d’esprit.

Elle appartient à la minorité hongroise d’un pays qui ne sait toujours pas s’il a vraiment fini d’être un pays.

Son métier ? 

Aider les promoteurs immobiliers à « réallouer » les rêves des autres en opportunités d’investissement.

Malheureusement, l’un de ces rêves saute par la fenêtre avant que la paperasse ne soit bouclée.

Et voilà la culpabilité.

Infinie, renouvelable, performative : la source d’énergie la plus propre de l’Europe moderne.

Orsolya s’enfonce dans une crise morale qui ferait dire à Dostoïevski : « Calme-toi un peu. »

Elle confie à son mari avoir songé au suicide, mais hélas, elle est trop occupée à s’excuser devant les médias pour passer à l’acte.

Tout le monde autour d’elle lui répète qu’elle n’a rien fait de mal.

La police la compare même à Oskar Schindler — parce qu’en Roumanie, l’absolution se livre désormais avec une mise à jour historique.

Comme toutes les héroïnes de Jude, Orsolya incarne la vertu moderne sous sa forme la plus tragico-comique : elle veut se sentir coupable, mais pas au point que cela devienne vraiment gênant.

Chacune de ses rencontres — avec une mère raciste qui vénère son Premier ministre, une amie qui souhaiterait que son clochard du coin « disparaisse enfin », ou un prêtre qui traite la confession comme un programme de fidélité client — approfondit la farce.

Chaque conversation se conclut de la même manière : « Vous êtes en règle. »

Et au XXIᵉ siècle, c’est déjà presque la sainteté.

Radu Jude, philosophe farceur, peuple Cluj de dinosaures animatroniques et de chiens robots — métaphore parfaite d’un capitalisme préhistorique ressuscité pour venir vous aboyer dessus.

Sa Roumanie ressemble à un IKEA socialiste construit sur un cimetière antique : on peut y acheter une conscience dans le rayon « Valeurs », mais le stock est épuisé jusqu’au prochain exercice fiscal.

Sur le plan formel, Jude poursuit sa tradition de filmer l’apocalypse comme une vidéo de formation RH.

Les dialogues semblent improvisés par des gens qui ont trop lu de débats Facebook sur l’empathie, et le rythme évoque une nouvelle de Kafka mise en scène par Ken Loach.

Le titre, Kontinental ’25, fait un clin d’œil à Europa ’51 de Rossellini — sauf qu’ici, la sainteté a été remplacée par la bonne communication.

Orsolya ne se rachète pas : elle soigne son image.

Le monde continue, les promoteurs rasent tout, et chacun se félicite d’avoir éprouvé un léger malaise.

C’est la culpabilité comme performance artistique : postmoderne, post-éthique, et parfaitement monétisée.

À la fin, la dépression d’Orsolya ressemble moins à une crise spirituelle qu’à un burn-out d’influenceuse.

Elle ne confesse pas ses fautes : elle les teste.

Et Jude, malin, le sait bien.

Sa satire ne vise pas seulement la Roumanie, mais toute la classe moyenne mondiale, celle qui pratique la contrition entre un brunch et une soirée Netflix.

Kontinental ’25 n’est pas tant un film qu’un miroir — un miroir qui s’excuse de vous y refléter.

---

Paris, le 12 octobre

Giulia Dobre

Kontinental ’25: How to Evict Your Conscience (and Other Romanian Pastimes)

 Kontinental ’25: 

How to Evict Your Conscience 

(and Other Romanian Pastimes)

Ownership. That quiet, innocent word that just wants to know whose turn it is to ruin the planet next. 

It’s the unspoken buzzword of Kontinental ’25, Radu Jude’s latest cinematic séance, in which Romania’s eternal identity crisis meets late capitalism in a head-on collision — and capitalism wins, naturally, because it brought lawyers.

Our heroine, Orsolya (Eszter Tompa, saint of the slightly overworked), is a bailiff in Cluj — which, depending on who you ask, is either Transylvania or a state of mind. 

She’s a Hungarian minority in a country that’s still unsure if it’s finished being a country. 

Her day job? Helping real estate developers “reallocate” people’s dreams into investment opportunities. 

Unfortunately, one of those dreams jumps out the window before the paperwork clears.

Cue guilt. 

Infinite, renewable, performative guilt: the cleanest energy source known to modern Europe.

Orsolya spirals into a moral breakdown that would make Dostoevsky say, “Okay, tone it down.” 

She tells her husband she’s considered suicide, but alas, she’s too busy apologizing to the media to go through with it. Everyone around her tells her she did nothing wrong. The police even compare her to Oskar Schindler, because in Romania, absolution now comes with a historical upgrade.

Like all Jude heroines, Orsolya is a tragicomic avatar of modern virtue: she wants to feel bad, but not so bad that it becomes inconvenient. 

Each encounter she has — with a racist mother who loves her prime minister, a friend who wishes her local homeless man were “just gone already,” and a priest who treats confession like a customer loyalty program — only deepens the farce. 

Every conversation ends the same way: “You’re legally fine.” Which, in the 21st century, is practically sainthood.

Jude, the prankster philosopher, populates Cluj with animatronic dinosaurs and robot dogs, because what better metaphor for gentrification than prehistoric capitalism coming back to life and barking at you? 

His Romania looks like a socialist IKEA built on an ancient burial ground: you can buy a conscience in the “Values” section, but it’s sold out until next fiscal quarter.

Formally, Jude continues his tradition of shooting the apocalypse as an HR training video. 

The dialogue feels improvised by people who’ve read too many Facebook debates about empathy, and the pacing suggests a Kafka story directed by Ken Loach.

The title, Kontinental ’25, nods to Rossellini’s Europa ’51, though here sainthood has been replaced by good PR. 

Orsolya doesn’t redeem herself — she refreshes her image. 

The world moves on, developers bulldoze, and everyone congratulates themselves for feeling slightly bad. 

It’s guilt as performance art: postmodern, post-ethical, and fully monetized.

By the end, Orsolya’s breakdown feels less like spiritual reckoning and more like influencer burnout. She’s not confessing her sins. She's testing them.

And Jude, bless him, knows this. 

His satire isn’t just aimed at Romania, but at the global middle class performing contrition between brunch and Netflix. 

Kontinental ’25 isn’t a film so much as a mirror that apologizes for reflecting you.

Paris, October 12th

Giulia Dobre

The Tragedy of Captain Pity: How Not to Be a Hero in 10 Easy Steps

               Wheelchairs, Wounds, and Wannabe Heroes

Ungeduld des Herzens

Out of the ten brilliant films I had the honor of selecting for the 30th German Film Festival in Paris 2025, Ungeduld des Herzens is my personal favorite—because nothing says “cinematic excellence” like a soldier in a muscle shirt trying to cure heartbreak with stem cells and sheer emotional confusion.

Ah, "Ungeduld des Herzens" is the kind of film that should come with a warning: If you have any lingering hope for humanity, do not watch this. 

Let’s start with Isaac. Ah, Isaac. This is the guy who is about as self-aware as a brick, but with the ambition of a motivational speaker who’s had one too many "just go for it" coffees. 

His life is like the slow-motion train wreck of a reality show where everyone competes to be the most misguided. 

And Isaac? Well, he’s winning.

Isaac Nasic (played with such a desperate charm by Giulio Brizzi that you almost want to hug him and slap him at the same time) is a Bundeswehr soldier who seems to have confused his military training for a series of bad decisions wrapped in a muscle shirt and an excessive number of tattoos.

 You know, the kind of guy who would’ve had a brief, tragic career as a bad guy in an action movie... if he were in an action movie. 

Instead, he’s stuck in The Sad Life of Isaac, starring as the world’s least qualified hero. 

His bright idea? To rescue Edith, a paralyzed woman with more grit than Isaac will ever muster, from the horrific curse of – wait for it – needing help. 

Ah, yes. He’s here to show her pity, cure her (and himself, apparently), and all the while, he’s utterly convinced that he’s going to do the world a favor. "Look at me, world! I’m a hero!"

That’s the core of the film, isn’t it?

 Isaac’s grandiose quest to prove that he can be the knight in shining armor by making everything worse. 

And what does he do? He takes pity on Edith. 

Oh, and spoiler alert, folks: it’s the worst kind of pity. The kind that looks down on you while whispering sweet nothings about how everything is going to be just fine, even though it’s completely not. 

Edith (Ladina von Frisching, who is so good she might have been cast in a different movie by accident) is dealing with her own immense challenges – paralyzed after a motorcycle accident, dealing with a controlling family, and trying to make sense of a world that suddenly sees her as the disabled girl – and Isaac strolls in like, "Hey, let me fix you with my manly, I’m-not-sure-what-I’m-doing charm."

His approach? To be as cringingly un-self-aware as possible.

 You know how in movies when the protagonist tries to sweep someone off their feet and it’s all cinematic and beautiful?

Yeah, Isaac does that, except instead of magic, it’s all horrible awkwardness and a sense of impending doom. He knocks Edith out of her wheelchair at one point – at a bowling alley, no less, which is probably where all life-altering decisions should be made, right? 

If there's one thing I took away from this film, it’s that bowling alleys are a perfect microcosm for human failure.

And then there’s the sexual tension – or, in Isaac’s case, the sexual confusion. 

He sees Edith as both his "little sister" and an opportunity to prove to her father that he’s not a failure. 

It's like he’s trying to play matchmaker for someone else’s family, while forgetting to, you know, understand the woman he’s supposedly interested in. 

And don't even get me started on the sex scene. 

It’s like watching a deer trying to walk on ice for the first time, except you’re the deer, and also the ice, and maybe even the one with the lumbering instinct to run.

With Impatience of the Heart, Lauro Cress delivers a strong, ambitious feature debut that fearlessly drags Stefan Zweig’s 1939 novel into the 21st century — where guilt still hurts, but at least it’s beautifully lit. 

Shot as his graduation film at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin and co-produced by Schiwago Film, Cress proves that “student film” can mean “existential crisis with impeccable production values.” 

The film had its world premiere at the Max Ophüls Preis Film Festival, where it swept the board: Giulio Brizzi (Race for Glory: Audi vs. Lancia) and Ladina von Frisching (The Theory of Everything) both won the acting prizes, and the film itself took home the 2025 Best Movie Award — 

- not bad for a class project.

Let’s talk about the film’s aesthetic. 

It’s artful, folks. 

The cinematography feels like it was made by someone who wanted you to feel uncomfortable just by looking at the screen. 

The lighting – neon blues and harsh whites – echoes Isaac’s emotional coldness. It’s like the filmmaker is saying, "You want to root for this guy? Too bad. Look at his face. Look at that tattoo. Now feel guilty for liking him." 

And it works! 

The slow-moving camera feels like it’s staring at Isaac the way you would stare at an antelope caught in the headlights. It’s like the lens is waiting for him to realize, "Oh, wait, I shouldn’t have tried to solve everything with my patronizing smile."

But here’s the kicker: I felt for Isaac. 

By the end of the film, I found myself half-hoping he’d get his redemption, while the other half was furiously shaking my head at his total obliviousness. 

He’s the tragic hero who thinks he’s the good guy – and that’s the kind of irony that Stefan Zweig would have loved. The more Isaac tries to "fix" Edith, the more it feels like he’s trying to paper over cracks in his own fractured sense of self-worth. 

It’s like watching a car crash happen in slow motion, but you can’t help but stare.

In summary, this movie is a delightful, gut-wrenching descent into a modern version of Zweig’s Beware of Pity. 

Isaac’s tragic flaw is that he wants to save someone – but doesn’t have the emotional maturity to see how much harm he’s causing in the process. 

If you’re into watching a guy ruin his life and a woman’s life, all while trying to be the hero, this film’s got your name written all over it.

And if you haven’t read the novel yet... well, good luck. You’ll likely walk away feeling too much sympathy for Isaac, while also questioning the very notion of pity itself. 

Maybe that’s the genius of it. 

Maybe the world needs more self-deprecating soldiers in muscle shirts, trying to fix the world by fumbling through it. 

At least they’re trying, right?

But seriously. 

Don’t try to fix people. 

It’s way too much work.

CREDITS: Country/Year: Germany 2025 · 

Running time: 104 minutes · 

Screenplay: Lauro Cress, Florian Plumeyer · 

Director: Lauro Cress · 

Cast: Giulio Brizzi, Ladina von Frisching, Livia Matthes, Thomas Loibl, Jan Fassbender, Ludwig Blochberger.

By Giulia Dobre

Paris, October 12th, 2025.