PREMISE
A college professor finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star pupil levels an accusation against one of her colleagues and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come to light.
THE GOOD STUFF
JULIA ROBERTS- We’ve now reached a point where Julia Roberts can accurately be described as underappreciated. As a child of the 90s, I didn’t think this period would ever be possible, but here we are. Discussions about her status as a cinema icon are usually met with hesitation and guffaws by those who think her legacy is somehow “overrated.” The rom-com films are what everybody associates with Julia Roberts, and understandably so. But in many of those romantic comedies, she would still show moments of dramatic brilliance. Then, after she won her Oscar in 2000, her dramatic performances began to increase. And none of them have been bad. None of them.
That is very much the case with this film. She hasn’t had a performance this good in a really long time, and hopefully it doesn’t go unnoticed. As the movie goes along, all this takes its emotional toll very slowly but surely, and Roberts eats it all up. Not everybody can perform this nuance. Roberts has been world-class for 30 years, and hopefully, people can see her as she deserves to be seen and appreciate performances like this.
ANDY GARFIELD- Garfield has low-key become one of the more reliable actors in the business. He always finds a way to take the natural amiability that he has in every one of his roles and sprinkle enough spice on them to turn them into really complicated portrayals. This character is different than anything he’s ever played. A very realistic portrayal of a person who is so consistently in your space that it makes you uncomfortable. A person with such a genial disposition that when anything other than that shows up, it is absolutely jarring. To say too much about this character is going into spoiler territory, but I will say that Garfield manages to bring something different every time I see him on screen.
THE BAD STUFF
THE AYO EDEBIRI CONUNDRUM- As time has passed, I’ve come to realize that Edebiri is an actor with very idiosyncratic quirks. There’s a very distinctive kind of physicality and vocal delivery that only she has, which makes her performances very particular. I can’t help but see her the same way I would see someone like Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, or Tilda Swinton. When those actors are good in something, they are a special kind of great. Great to the point where you cannot imagine anybody else playing the thing that they’ve just played because of their distinctive idiosyncrasies. But sometimes those actors are put in the wrong thing, and it just doesn’t work… no matter how hard they try.
Edebiri is putting in the maximum effort here. This is the hardest I’ve ever seen her go at a role in anything that I’ve watched her in. The first act of this movie is right in the wheelhouse of what we’ve seen her do. However, the second act of this film requires this character to have the kind of intensity we haven’t seen from her up to this point…and it kind of doesn’t fit. It’s almost fitting but not quite. This was an inspired casting choice, but the Edebiri idiosyncrasies do not match the character’s intensity for most of the film, IMO.
THE UGLY STUFF
THE FLOWCHART-
Behold…the Luca Guadagnino flowchart:
- The first and second acts are slow-burning. A brilliant, intricate thriller with great performances all around, and it looks to have a lot of interesting statements to make…
- There’s going to be a time jump after a pivotal point in the movie…..
- And then the film closes with 15 to 25 minutes of bull**** and an ending that may or may not make a whole lot of sense. If it does make sense, there’s no need to explain everything we’ve previously seen.
That being said, the third act of this film is a complete disaster, and that’s worth mentioning because I can’t think of a single movie that Luca Guadagnino has done that actually lands the damn plane with a solid ending. Not one. However, he is a master of the first and second acts. I must emphasize that.
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The RETURN OF THE KING syndrome is also at play. For those of you who are not aware of what the return of the King syndrome is, it is referring to the Lord of the rings movie that had about six different times where you could have rolled the end credits and had it made sense. Still, the film just kept going, and the scenes just got more asinine as it went along. That happened here. Not to that extent, but there are at least three solid moments where you could have rolled the credits on this thing, yet we got maybe about 10 more minutes of screen time that didn’t need to be there. SMH.
AFTER THE HUNT is in theaters now
