Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt is about complex, complicated relationships, truth, power, manipulation, and deception. At least that’s what it tries to be about.

Julia Roberts stars as Alma, a professor at Yale. She is seemingly respected and adored by everyone, especially her charismatic colleague, Hank (Andrew Garfield), and her ultra-wealthy student, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri).

But Alma’s world is shaken up when Maggie accuses Hank of sexual assault. Soon, suspicions arise, motivations are questioned, and nothing seems as clear-cut as we might like to believe. 

When the movie focuses on the suspicions and questions surrounding the incident, it shines. 

Not a single character here is likable. They’re all pretentious, flawed, and very selfish, but this works for the story when we’re questioning what actually went down and learning more about the darker sides they’re all trying to hide. 

Because none of their motivations are completely clean, our allegiance shifts from scene to scene, which can make the character work feel engaging and interesting. Who should we believe when everyone seems so rotten? 

Garfield’s charming personality initially makes us feel like this is all a big lie, something Maggie concocted to target Hank based on information she learned about Alma’s past. He’s flirty and affectionate, sure, but inappropriate? We can’t be too sure.

Edebiri is excellent at making Maggie seem both vulnerable and utterly manipulative. Her obsession with Alma, Hank, and their relationship makes us question her motivations from the start, but then stops us in our tracks and prompts us to reconsider why we would be so quick to dismiss such a traumatic accusation. 

Roberts built a career on being likeable and personable, so her turn as Alma is impressive. The character is basically a selfish alcoholic who has her own questionable motivations as she navigates the situation. Her marriage is complicated, her relationship with Hank is and their competition for tenure is complicated, and her friendship with Maggie is messy. Roberts deserves applause for bringing such nuance to such a prickly character.

Unfortunately, the plot of After the Hunt loses focus, and the strong performances aren’t enough to overcome problems in the screenplay.

Some of the dialogue feels like a first draft from a template. In an opening scene, the professors are having a discussion at a party that is so pretentious it feels like a parody of the intellectual conversation dialogue someone would write for a bunch of Ivy League professors.

At one point, Alma fires back at a student about social justice, essentially calling the student a snowflake. It’s very reminiscent of a similar, memorable scene in Tár, but without enough buildup to give it the impact. I just kept thinking, “Lydia Tár would have done this so much better.”

We have entire characters in here that add little to the story beyond a couple of interesting moments. Chloë Sevigny and Michael Stuhlbarg are both great actors, and I had no issues with their performances, but their characters don’t get enough development. They can start to feel like elevated scenery when they could have helped us reveal something more interesting about Alma and her state of mind.

Worst of all is that this movie tackles controversial subject matter but doesn’t really say much about it. 

We’re presented with a #MeToo situation, and it’s interesting to look at that through the lens of questioning what happened, shifting the audience allegiance, and raising questions about how well we can really know someone, but it feels like any intrigue or interest in that storyline gets slowly deflated.

I found myself mentally checking out and consciously wondering why I wasn’t more engaged with After the Hunt because the performances are great, the film looks good, but something just wasn’t clicking for me.

On top of that, I think Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross have done some incredible scores—the Challengers score is an all-timer—but the music here felt disconnected in a way that surprised me. There were oddly placed musical stings like something out of a horror movie, but it was like what we were hearing didn’t match up to where we were in the story. Frankly, it bummed me out because usually their scores are one of the highlights of a movie.

Despite some strengths, After the Hunt is a disappointing execution of what might have been a fascinating story. The three central performances are praiseworthy, but I wish the screenplay had given us more. Instead, many of the ideas here are never quite explored.