Of Marco Luceri

Luca Guadagnino's film, with Julia Roberts, «about what each of us hides». A lucid and ruthless film, but full of doubts

Just under a month ago Luca Guadagnino was a guest in Fiesole, to receive the annual and prestigious Masters of Cinema Award. On that occasion the Palermo director had not anticipated anything about his latest film, «After the Hunt», which had its world premiere at Venice Film Festivaland just arrived in theaters, except calling it a film «about what each of us hides».

And it is precisely to this frame that the story told, with the protagonist, refers a philosophy professor named Alma (Julia Roberts)waiting to receive the coveted professorship at Yale, whose world is turned upside down when one of his brilliant students, Maggie (Ayo Ebediri), accuses a colleague and friend, Hank (Andrew Garfield), of sexual harassment. The story puts Alma's professional and personal relationships to the test, forcing her to confront a dark secret from her past and to reconsider her academic life and the bonds that surround it.

Se ambiguity it is the characteristic that always distinguishes Guadagnino's cinema, this story (written by Nora Garrett) is perfectly suited to being staged through his gaze. In a contemporary society torn apart by the constant friction between two opposite poles, moral correctness and exhibited incorrectness, the Sicilian director immerses his protagonists in this mass of contradictionsshowing them at the same time for what they are and what they are not. Positioned along the border between truth and perception, they become uncontrollable forces, drivers of an action in which every word and every gesture are eternally held back by their possible consequences.

It comes out a lucid and ruthless film, but full of doubtson a present time made of fear and uncertainty, on our being blocked and helpless in the face of the chaos of the world, and therefore on the inability to truly act.

• Regia: Luca Guadagnino; Interpreters: Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, Ayo Ebediri, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny; Screenplay: Nora Garrett; Photograph: Malik Hassan Sayeed; Music: Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross; Assembly: Marco Costa; Scenography: Stefano Baisi; Distribution: Eagle Pictures. Italy/USA, 2025, 139'.

• In Florence it is in these rooms: Fiamma, Giunti Odeon, Marconi, Portico, The Space, Uci.

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October 17, 2025

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