And itโs in that audacity to let its waters stay murky, to allow its characters to be unreliable and unlikeable, and to live in the grey, where I think After The Hunt shines. Roberts plays Alma Imhoff, a Yale professor whose star student, Maggie (Edebiri), accuses her colleague and best friend, Hank (Garfield), of sexual assault. From pretentious pseudo-intellectual debates over whisky to hard-to-watch faceoffs between two women from different generations and races who throw jabs about pronouns and intersectionality at each other to the unfairly messy politics of consent, After The Hunt dares to capture the frustration, hypocrisy and absurdity of the past five to six years (the movie is set from 2019-2025). It doesnโt deliver answers necessarily, but neither does that white dude in your Ethics 101 class โ or your timeline โ trying to debate you about your humanity. Mostly, these topics shouldnโt be up for debate at all. After The Hunt asks you to confront your own participation in making sexual assault a punchline and complicity in twisting the push for victims into fodder for the culture wars. The movieโs biggest flaw is that the racial dynamic between Maggie and Alma isnโt mined enough, but thanks to stellar performances by Roberts (her best in years) and Edebiri (consistently proving sheโs a star), the gaps in the script are filled in with subtext and loaded stares. Throw in a live wire Garfield (heโs riveting and infuriating) and youโve got a film that grabs hold and doesnโt let go until its final frame.
