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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
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