\u201cCancel culture\u201d is a minefield. And those who claim that it exists seem to define it in one way only: being erased from public and professional life without due process or any hope for a comeback. Even though many of those who lost their status (or got \u201ccancelled\u201d) in recent years have merely faced the consequences of their proven actions, the originators of the saying managed to pull a great trick: these days, we are all using the term unironically somehow (whether we agree with cancel culture\u2019s existence or not), and thus, inadvertently doing the bidding for the narrative.<\/p>\n
Why is this intro into the murkiness of \u201ccancel culture\u201d necessary in order to talk about Luca Guadagnino<\/a>\u2019s sharp and well-calibrated campus psychodrama \u201cAfter the Hunt,\u201d you might rightfully ask. That\u2019s because\u2014at least at first glance\u2014those are the treacherous waters that Guadagnino and first-time screenwriter Nora Garrett set out to navigate. Has the \u201cconsequence culture\u201d (a more accurate name for our current moment) gone too far? Are we being a tad unfair? And yet, these questions only scratch the tip of the iceberg in Guadagnino\u2019s handsomely provocative thriller, about a modern-day (and fictional) sexual assault case in the mahogany-heavy bowels of an Ivy League school.<\/p>\n Beyond that fa\u00e7ade, there is thankfully more\u2014a great deal more. What \u201cAfter the Hunt\u201d really pursues over the course of its patient two-hours-and-change is something several levels deeper, akin to John Patrick Shanley\u2019s pre-#MeToo masterpiece, \u201cDoubt.\u201d First a stage-play in 2004, then a searing 2008 movie that pits two greats\u2014Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman\u2014against each other in a Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, \u201cDoubt\u201d was about the eponymous concept that goes hand-in-hand with faith, like the other side of the same coin. Human beings are complex; everyone holds multiple truths with competing motivations and priorities, and you can\u2019t really reach the truth by simply asserting your certainty.<\/p>\n Those ideas that favor healthy skepticism over blind faith are very much at the heart of \u201cAfter the Hunt\u201d as well, as Garrett\u2019s thoughtful (if imperfect) script reveals the depths of its trio of main characters in drips. But unlike in \u201cDoubt,\u201d the question of whether or not the aforementioned assault happened takes a backseat in due course. Again, this film primarily explores individual and social complexities, as well as how the truth can be interpreted and misinterpreted through the eyes of the pursuer.<\/p>\n Here, the primary player is Julia Roberts<\/a>\u2019 Alma Imhoff, a Yale philosophy professor on the cusp of receiving her well-earned tenure. The film kicks off with Alma\u2019s morning routine, set against the backdrop of muffled sounds and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross\u2019 ticktock-ing score, which feels like a bomb is about to detonate. We meet the other players soon enough\u2014there is Ayo Edebiri<\/a>\u2019s PhD candidate Maggie Price, an evident prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Alma\u2014and Andrew Garfield<\/a>\u2019s loose-limbed Hank Gibson, Alma\u2019s close department friend. And if their suggestive closeness is any indication, they have occasionally been a bit more than friends.<\/p>\n