Some provocations sneak up on you, but “After the Hunt” teases its true nature as soon as the opening credits roll.
If you’re any kind of film fan, you’ll surely get déjà vu from the first few title cards of this cancel-culture drama, which stars Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield and Ayo Edebiri. That’s because “After the Hunt,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival on Friday, employs the same white Windsor font and alphabetical billing that Woody Allen used in the opening credits of nearly all of his movies.
Why did Luca Guadagnino, who directed the film, want to pay such overt homage to Allen?
“The crass answer would be, why not?” Guadagnino said at the film’s news conference.
He noted that though elements of “After the Hunt” recalled Allen’s films like “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” there was another reason he wanted to call out the filmmaker, whose career was derailed in 2018 when sexual abuse allegations by Allen’s daughter Dylan were resurfaced. (Allen has denied the claims and was not charged.)
“I felt it was an interesting nod to thinking of an artist who has been, in a way, facing some sort of problems about his being, and what is our responsibility of looking at the work of an artist that we love,” Guadagnino said.
“After the Hunt” pivots on a disturbing accusation and its aftermath, as Alma (Roberts), a professor at Yale, must choose sides when her protégée, Maggie (Edebiri), accuses Alma’s colleague Hank (Garfield) of sexual assault. Maggie claims that after a party, Hank invited himself into her apartment and coerced her into sex. But Hank insists to Alma, his longtime friend, that Maggie concocted this story to cover up the fact that he confronted her for plagiarizing a paper.
Each expects Alma’s unequivocal support but she’s far too calculating for that: With tenure on the horizon, the optics of her aid matter just as much as determining the truth. Still, it’s clear that Alma is irked by Maggie’s brand of Gen-Z entitlement and the younger woman’s willingness to wield the accusation like a weapon. When Maggie tells her mentor that she’s making her uncomfortable, Alma snaps back with relish: “Not everything is supposed to make you feel comfortable.”
The same could be said of “After the Hunt,” which has sharply divided critics here since its debut. At the Friday news conference, one female journalist even asked Roberts whether releasing the film could be regarded as a setback for feminism.
The Oscar-winning star leveled her gaze on the woman. “I realize we’re here on a clock,” she said, “but when you say ‘undermines the feminist movement,’ can you give me just a little morsel of in what way do you see that?”
The journalist explained that after the press screening, she and her colleague debated whether the film might revive old arguments about whether women’s accusations of sexual assault should be believed.
“Not to be disagreeable, because it’s not in my nature,” cracked Roberts, “but I would say the thing you just said that I love is that it revives old arguments.”
“There’s a lot of old arguments that get rejuvenated in this movie,” and “that does create conversation,” she continued. “The best part of your question is how you all came out of the theater talking about it. That’s how we want it to feel.”
Guadagnino insisted that the film isn’t meant to do harm. “It’s not about making a manifesto to revive old-fashioned values,” he said. “The idea of the movie is that we are looking at people in their truths. Everyone has their own truths — it’s not that one truth is more important than another.”
At the very least, “After the Hunt” showcases Roberts in a striking new light that could put her in the awards conversation. Tamping down her rom-com ebullience, Roberts plays Alma as a cool, flinty-eyed opportunist who mistreats her loyal husband (Michael Stuhlbarg) and repeatedly crosses ethical lines.
Roberts welcomed the challenge. “Trouble’s where the juicy stuff is,” she said during the news conference. She hopes that audiences will feel the same way when “After the Hunt” makes its way to theaters on Oct. 10.
“We’re kind of losing the art of conversation in humanity right now,” Roberts said. “If making this movie does anything, getting everybody to talk to each other is the most exciting thing I think we could accomplish.”
Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and also serves as The Projectionist, the awards season columnist for The Times.
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