When Luca Guadagninos ”After the hunt“Premiere at Venice Film The festival at the end of August was greeted with some of the most divided reviews of the filmmaker’s career. Critics (sincerely, including myself) were impressed by the performances and filmmaking, but were left confused by the first time screenwriter Nora Garrett’s Muddled script, which handles post-metoo society, privilege and power in the academic world. Reviews were generally mixed with negatives, with a few awards.
A month later, the movie arrived as the opening evening at the New York Film Festival. So how did his current drama tied, about a Yale Philosophy Professor (Julia Roberts) in her black student (Ayo Edebiri) sexual abuse against a white colleague (Andrew Garfield), play on Innocence?
It opened Highbrow’s two -week program, monitored by artistic director and former film critic Dennis Lim and CEO Matt Bolish, last Friday in Alice Tullly Hall. Former Guadagnino films to play NYFF include “Queer”, “Bones and All” and “Call Me By Your Name” – all of which received better receptions throughout their driving than “After Hunt” has so far.
But can new mouth-to-mouth not necessarily good, but at least new – Increase “after hunting” at this time?
A sampling of mostly millennial critics and journalists at Friday night’s premiere “After the Hunt” that I talked to at the official after -party at Tavern On The Green on the edges of Central Park, was also left calling by the film. It goes on for a long time in just 2 hours and 20 minutes, and a journalist that I talked to said that although the film was not necessarily boring, its length led to them felt the pain in a coherent story. There are plot elements that do not always add or seem to be easily attributed to recognizing human behavior (for example, why Julia Robert’s character Alma holds an image that is extremely revealing about an earlier secret taped under her bathroom vanity, rather than in Pied-à-Terre she retains as a private office).
But a colleague I had talked to who had looked at a previous draft of the script said that many elements were different in that script – including that. So we are curious to hear from the screenwriter Garrett about what has changed and why.
However, the film has its admirers, including another critic who appreciated what they felt was its astonishing look at how trauma is processed differently between generations. (Alma, it is implied, is twice the age of Edebiri’s character.) “After the hunt”, Amazon MGM was referred to by Studios Big Horse in the Oscar race this year, may not make it all the way to the Academy Awards Despite the hope of Julia Roberts returned to the best actress category since she won in 2001 for “Erin Brockovich.” (Her last Oscar nomination was entirely to support the actress 2014 for “August: Osage County.”)
But where the film can remain a player is the HFPA-disdained Golden Globes, a handful of whose international spectrum of voters attended a crowded press conference during the film’s global junk. There, journalists (both in the room and joined via Zoom) engaging questions such as Roberts and her role and creative team praised – she did not have it at Venice’s film festival, especially when the first question was asked on the Italian presser was: “Why undermine this movie Undravement?”
Roberts is a Globes Darling, nominated by 2023 for TV’s similarly on the subject “Gaslit” as Martha Mitchell. She has won three times from 10 nominations, and the capacity to have two categories (musical/comedy and drama) for best actress gives her room to play in. “After the hunt” has an image to play better for two core groups-the international coterie and the wonderful reflection of the 3’s that has not reflected on the 3rd century.
Amazon MGM Studios opens “After the Hunt” in selected theaters on Friday 10 October followed by a nationwide edition on Friday 17 October. How it plays for non-trade critics will fact in its possible theater activities. And when the film eventually reaches Amazon’s foremost video streaming service, fans of Edebiri, Roberts, Garfield and Guadagnino can vote with little risk and share thoughts and sound pieces and viral clips of the film on social media, where it can very well find a whole new life.
