If After The Hunt Isn't a Me Too Movie, What Is It?

"Luca Guadagnino's After the Hunt is set primarily in the year 2019, a mere 18 months after the Me Too movement took hold of Hollywood and other creative industries, at a potent time for "cancel culture" debates. The film takes place on a college campus - Yale, to be precise - where it depicts students as fiercely political if not naïvely altruistic and faculty as weary referees trying to get home early. And yet, for all its dancing around and within these big issues, the film's director and cast have refused to let After the Hunt be defined by them."

"His comments came after the film's mixed reaction at the Venice Film Festival, which included one journalist arguing that Guadagnino's latest is anti-feminist. "The idea that something is anti-feminist is a bit generic, and also is so devoid of the pleasure of watching the movie, because look at the fucking movie and enjoy the story of these people," Guadagnino added in his conversation with Variety."

"To some extent, he's right: After the Hunt (which opens the New York Film Festival tonight) is an enjoyable experience. It is sensual and rich in texture with a robust score and expensive-looking costume design. As characters move in and out of lush apartments and dive bars and one especially beloved hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant, it may take a while to realize that After the Hunt is far more interested in the people talking than in the ideas they're talking about."

After the Hunt takes place in 2019, roughly eighteen months after the Me Too movement, amid heightened cancel-culture debates on a Yale campus. Students appear fiercely political and sometimes naïvely altruistic, while faculty members read as weary referees. The director and cast resisted framing the film as a Me Too statement, and Guadagnino rejected claims that the film is anti-feminist, urging viewers to enjoy the story. The film emphasizes sensual texture, a robust score, and polished costume design, following characters through apartments, dive bars, and a beloved Indian restaurant, with a focus on people talking rather than abstract ideas. Julia Roberts's character Alma is not literally being canceled.

Read at Vulture