After the Hunt

I'm in the minority of people who liked this film. In fact, most critics and audiences hated it (as I type this, the Rotten Tomatoes scores stand at a dismal 37% and 38% respectively). And I will say this, the film is pretentious, sort of. I can understand if people feel this way. It didn't bother me. It reminded me of Fincher's The Social Network. There is a cool-hipster vibe here, intellectual PhD tigers on leather sofas like they were in an Annie Leibovitz photo shoot. They drink wine and spirits like they were the drinking the blood of weak first year undergraduates, ready to pounce on any struggling idea. Eat them alive. What's it about? Its focus is Yale College professor, Alma (Julia Roberts), her psychoanalyst husband, Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg), her star student, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), and Alma's fellow professor Hank (Andrew Garfield) as Alma and Hank vie for tenure. Maggie, post smarty-pants party accuses Hank of sexual assault and then everything falls into chaos. There are no clear answers given and no clear villains. I'm not exactly sure what we are to take away from it all. Perhaps it's a commentary on all the #Metoo films we have had, or maybe it's telling us that truth is messy, as is life. What it definitely is, it's captivating. And the soundtrack! If Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest is an example of how to ruin a film with a jazzy soundtrack, then After the Hunt is how make a film great with a jazzy soundtrack. Looking for a film that may challenge you? Want to see Julia Roberts give a performance that will knock your socks off? Then check out After the Hunt in theatres or go rent it from Movies 'N Stuff here in Ottawa.