After the Hunt is Julia Roberts’ juiciest role in ages but I was disappointed 

A first time collaboration between Julia Roberts and Challengers and Queer filmmaker Luca Guadagnino was enough to make me sit up and take notice immediately.

Add in a twisty drama about assault allegations in an elite academia setting, and co-stars Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri, and I was almost convinced that After the Hunt couldn’t fail.

But while I was captivated by Roberts’ central performance as a flawed professor whose carefully maintained life threatens to be blown apart in the wreckage, the film left me feeling somewhat unfulfilled.

After the Hunt takes place in Yale’s philosophy department, where Alma (Roberts) is eyeing up tenure alongside her colleague Hank (Garfield). 

At a dinner party, they’re both nakedly hungry for it but if only one is to be selected, perhaps it will be Alma to reward her for fighting the good (female) fight all these years in a male-dominated field?

This is just the first of many questions After the Hunt will raise when it comes to vast topics such as feminism, sexism, racism and tokenism and how we interact with them as a society.

Alma is married to Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) but enjoys a close friendship with Hank, who is always comfortable enough to lounge against her or plant an affectionate kiss on her. He’s also loose and free with other characters and their bodies – including Alma’s protégé Maggie, touching her knee to bring her into a conversation.

Maggie will later claim that Hank ‘crossed a line’ that night, and ‘kept going when I said no’ after walking her back to her apartment.

Alma is then caught between the two, who both approach her for support and reassurance, while a closely-guarded secret of her own threatens to surface once more in this psychological thriller.

Garfield is upsettingly good as the entitled and slight handsy Hank, harnessing all his usual charisma as a force for bad, while Edebiri holds her own as a privileged student, hurt by her situation and looking for vengeance. She’s no ‘perfect victim’, just the way Alma has been a far from perfect mentor.

There’s lots offered here by screenwriter Nora Garrett and Guadagnino for the cast to play with – and all offer nuanced and engaging performances, alongside a hint of wildness threatened in everyone with tensions rising as the situation unfolds.

After the Hunt positions itself firmly in the messy, complicated intricacies of relationships and interactions, where there’s no right way to behave. And while that chimes with life, it does make for a rather unresolved film, unwilling to be one thing or another.

We’re presented with a cast of complex, troubled characters without judgement – which isn’t a problem in itself until After the Hunt appears to shy away from any kind of statement or propelling force.

However, it’s still an intriguing enough film, worth watching as any film from Call Me By Your Name’s Guadagnino world be: a handsomely made, cerebral and engaging movie.

I am also convinced there’s no question Roberts retains her movie star crown following her performance as Alma. I was never bored for a second watching her work in front of the camera, effortless as always.

It’s the juiciest film role she’s had in years, allowing her to show off her range and keep us guessing with her choices.

The camera loves her just as much at 57 with this type of conflicted character as it did at 22 in Pretty Woman and when she won her Oscar for Erin Brockovich in 2001.

After the Hunt premiered at Venice Film Festival on Thursday. It hits UK cinemas on October 17, 2025.

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