By Mark Fields
Tense Academic Drama Focuses on Deception of Others, Selves
An unreliable narrator is a literary term that refers to a storyteller that cannot be trusted to be entirely truthful, such as the mentally unstable spokesperson in Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart or the traumatized Pi in Life of Pi. The narrator may be misleading intentionally or in a self-deceiving way, but regardless, the reader must be extremely cautious not to blindly accept everything that the narrator says.
In director Luca Guadagnino’s absorbing new film, After The Hunt, philosophy doctoral student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) accuses one of her professors, Hank (Andrew Garfield) of questionable behavior. Maggie’s assertion and her request for support puts her at odds with her mentor, Alma (Julia Roberts), a fellow professor, friend, and potential rival of Hank’s as they both seek tenure at Yale. Of course, Maggie’s accusation unleashes a cascade of consequences for everyone involved..
What’s fascinating is that in this story there are a trio of unreliable narrators, and each presents a challenge to the viewer: not simply to discern the truth but also to understand whether the deception is directed outward or inward.
A viewer could choose to look at After The Hunt as a backlash against the faltering #MeToo movement as it seems, initially at least, to take sides with the accused over the accuser. Such a backlash would not be surprising in a contemporary film since a similar phenomenon seems to be rolling across the American landscape as accused molesters and harassers have been regaining their standing (see Johnny Depp or even President Trump).
But director Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) and novice screenwriter Nora Garrett are more savvy than that simplistic trendy punch-back. The story cleverly pits the #MeToo drama against another societal trend, the perceived hypersensitivity of Gen Z with all its obsession with triggering and safe spaces.
Each of these characters in After The Hunt has motivations to lie and yet also they represent as people of integrity. Deftly, the film doesn’t ever reveal who is telling the truth, or for that matter, what actually happened.
Roberts, Garfield, and Edebiri are all excellent in their performances, as is Michael Stuhlbarg as Alma’s psychologist husband, Frederick. Although the film is very talky and dense, they keep the viewer’s attention. Malik Hassan Sayeed’s muted cinematography and the jangly score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross contribute greatly to the tightly-coiled, almost claustrophobic atmosphere of After The Hunt.
This is not a fun movie for date night. The subject matter is challenging, and it offers no solutions, or even relief from the prevailing tension. After The Hunt, is, however, a powerful, if cynical lesson about the complexity of human behavior and motivation.
Official Trailer
