AFTER THE HUNT - Mark Reviews Movies

After the Hunt, Amazon MGM Studios

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 9, 2025

The question at the core of After the Hunt would seem to be a simple one: Did he do it? The movie, though, seems less interested in matters of simple and direct truth, and that brings us to question we end up asking as this story unfolds: Does it matter if he did or didn't?

This is really to say that most of the characters of Nora Garrett's screenplay remain an inscrutable mystery throughout the entirety of this story. It revolves around the foundation of that first question, in which the "he" is a professor at Yale University and the act is an accusation of sexual assault against one of his students. At the center of this puzzle is another professor named Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts), who is good friends with the professor, even though both of them strongly suggest their relationship could be more than that and are after a single tenured position in their department.

Alma is also close to the student who makes the accusation, mainly because said student clearly idolizes her. It helps, probably, that the student's parents are also wealthy donors to the university, and surely, having their daughter on Alama's side couldn't hurt.

There's plenty of potential drama here, and the reason Garrett and director Luca Guadgnino don't fulfill that promise might be the fact that neither of those aforementioned questions actually gets at the ones the movie is actually asking. One of them is what Alma actually believes about the situation at hand, because she has a way of trying to make both parties happy and make it seem as if, whenever she talks to each of them, she's on each one's side. Another is if Alma is the type of person to dismiss her own beliefs in order to get what she wants, and finally, there's the question that's likely the most important of them all: What does Alma want, anyway?

At this point, we're asking too many basic questions about both the story and the protagonist for this movie's own good. In a way, it's compelling, to be sure, because the stakes are undeniably high and the performances are finely attuned to giving a strong sense of personality, even as they don't necessarily give away when each character is being truthful or dishonest about what has happened or what their goals are. We might think we have a handle on them at certain moments, and then, something happens or is said here to make us reconsider everything we thought we believed.

The other professor is Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield), who teaches philosophy along with Alma at the Ivy League university. We see them, their peers, and some of their students relaxing at a party being held at the local apartment where Alma and her therapist husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) live. Everyone divides into groups, chats about this and that, and has very nice things to say about Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), a doctoral student working on her thesis with Hank's help. At the end of the night, Alma watches as Hank and Maggie leave together, with the professor offering to escort the student home.

The next day, Maggie comes to Alma, looking distraught and wanting to talk privately. She explains how Hank went into her apartment with her, the two had a drink, and he did something, continuing even after Maggie told him to stop.

Garrett's screenplay is quite precise—not only in giving us a sense of the characters through the dialogue, but also in how evasive they can be. Maggie never, for example, makes a specific accusation or, at least, not one that the audience is ever prone to hearing. Indeed, that's the first bit of doubt Alma and we have about Maggie's story, although we're at a bit of an advantage, too, compared to the professor, since we've witnessed the student going through a hidden envelope Alma keeps hidden in a bathroom, swiping a newspaper clipping without the teacher knowing.

Essentially, the plot becomes something of a back-and-forth. Maggie asserts she was assaulted and wants Alma's support, while Hank insists upon his innocence—coming across as so self-aware of his words and actions in the aftermath that it's tough to tell if he's being honest—and also wants his colleague's backup.

Meanwhile, Alma has her own issues, revolving around a secret past (That clandestine envelope becomes vital later), a sharp pain that flares up in abdomen on occasion, and her marriage to Frederik, whom Stuhlbarg plays with plain sincerity, unspoken compassion, and just a tinge of passive-aggressive jealousy about how overshadowed he is by his wife, as well as how everyone wants her attention. The performance is keenly portrayed, although one wonders if Stuhlbarg stands out so much simply because he's playing someone whose character is on full, unapologetic display.

The main characters can't really be believed about anything, after all, because the only grounding of the story of After the Hunt is uncertainty. By the end, we're no closer to the truth, any understanding of whether or not this controversy has meant anything, or, unfortunately, much of a reason to care about this drama.

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