Alma a college professor finds herself at the centre of a personal and professional crossroads when a star student places an accusation against one of her colleagues, bringing up memories of her past with a dark secret.
*This review CONTAINS SPOILERS*
After the Hunt attempts to be a clever psychological drama which falls a little short at times, leaving many unanswered questions. Which is why I will have some potential spoilers within the review, so I can fully disscus my thoughts on certain aspects of the film, something I know I don’t usually do in a review.
The opening scene will set everything up in terms of how it works within the department at Yale, each person seems to be more sophisticated than the other and trying to outsmart one another. We instantly see that Hank is rather full on himself and likes the attention being on him. Alma and her husband Frederik seem to have a strained relationship.
All eyes are also on Maggie who is a student and working on her thesis, when she leaves with Hank who offers to walk her home nothing is really thought of that. However, the next day when she does not turn up to class and ignores all of Alma’s calls she starts to think that is strange. When she eventually returns home after meeting Hank, a wet crying Maggie is sat at her door. This is when we are hit with the accusation that Hank stepped over the line and went too far, Alma is in utter shock and really does not react in the best way at all. Naturally she does not want to believe it.
SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT
From that moment everything is about to unravel, we are given many different moments that will make us the viewer believe he did it and other moments that he actually didn’t. It’s not actually answered in the film. Given that Hank had called Maggie out for the plagiarism on her dissertation and that is why he is adamant she made it up.
Alma is dealing with or not really dealing with everything very well. All linking back to trauma she suffered as a teenager, which was certainly a very strange direction for it to go in. Health issues impacting her constantly and a marriage she doesn’t seem to be enjoying.
I truly had high hopes for this film as thought the subject matter could have been very interesting and thought provoking in many different ways. It ends up all over the place instead of focused, Julia Roberts puts in a truly remarkable performance amongst the utter chaos and confirms just why she is one of my all time favourites.
