Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield in 'After the Hunt.' Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios Share on Facebook Share on X Share to Flipboard Send an Email Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Print the Article Post a Comment If the loudly insistent ticking clock in the opening minutes of After the Hunt gets on your nerves, then brace yourself, because you're about to get clobbered with two-and-a-quarter hours of it. Not just the intermittent clock, but the mind-numbing academia-speak, the hyper-articulate inter-generational savagery and the streams of circuitous talk about thorny ethics, sexual violations and contentious power dynamics. Director Luca Guadagnino and first-time screenwriter Nora Garrett seem convinced this is all very provocative, very now with its hard questions and subjective truths. But frankly it's very five years ago, which makes it more punishing. Related Stories Movies Venice: Werner Herzog Doc 'Ghost Elephants' Sells to National Geographic (Exclusive) Movies George MacKay's Venice Double Feature: "These Films Were Made With Such Love" Given that Guadagnino's greatest strengths have always been as a humanist, a sensualist and a bold visual stylist, it's baffling what drew him to material so aridly intellectual, stark and emotionless despite trafficking heavily in trauma. It seems almost implausible that the gifted filmmaker who just gave us the sizzling buoyancy of Challengers and the heady intoxication of Queer could deliver something so dour and airless. The Woody Allen-type main title treatment makes you wonder if Guadagnino is doing his version of a 21st century Interiors, a Bergman homage I'd sooner watch again than this, for Maureen Stapleton alone. After the Hunt The Bottom Line Too deliberately opaque to be stimulating. Venue: Venice Film Festival (Out of Competition)Release date: Friday, Oct. 10Cast: Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg, Chloë Sevigny, Lío Mehiel, David Leiber, Thaddea Graham, Will PriceDirector: Luca GuadagninoScreenwriter: Nora Garrett Rated R, 2 hours 18 minutes Maybe it was a desire to work with Julia Roberts, for whom this is an undeniably strong showcase, pouring herself into a character who's all sharp edges with scarcely a glimmer of warmth, an expert at hiding her feelings or anything even remotely personal. But as riveting as she is, Roberts ultimately is ill-served by a film so studiously cryptic that it ends up just frustrating. To be fair, there are several electric confrontations, distributed evenly enough to ensure that After the Hunt remains absorbing. But even so, this is a date movie to be used in relationship sabotage maneuvers. Yes, it's part of the point that every major character in this insular bubble of wealth, privilege, intellectual elitism and vigilant cultural sensitivity - I refuse to call it "wokeism" - is insufferable to some degree, even if they don't start out that way. That's all very well and it's not as if movies are required to fill a quota of sympathetic characters. But this bunch becomes steadily more distancing. Oh, except for Chloë Sevigny, dryly amusing in a frump wig as jaded feminist psychotherapist Kim, who only perks up when she hears Morrissey crooning "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now." Even the normally surefire element of a score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, with its blasts of dissonance pumping up the squirm factor, adds to the heavy-going effect of a movie that seems to go out of its way to be grating. Roberts plays Yale philosophy professor Alma Imhoff, who, along with her department colleague and closest friend Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield), can almost taste the tenure she knows her work has earned. As the drinks flow during a gathering of faculty and PhD students at their deluxe digs, Alma's doting husband Frederick (Michael Stuhlbarg), another shrink, teasingly asks what happens if one of them gets tenure and the other doesn't. Would the friendship survive it? Hank is a self-satisfied peacock and chronic flirt. So much so that when someone later says, "Everybody loves Hank," you might think, "Wait, are we talking about the same guy?" Much of his attention that evening is focused on Alma's star doctoral student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), who responds to his playful taunting about why her generation is so guarded by pinpointing it to the moment his generation started making sweeping generalizations about them. When opinionated classmate Arthur (Will Price) gripes about how inclusivity has bumped men like him out of the competitive academic ranks, Maggie is quick to clap back. As a queer Black woman, she has no time for "white, male, straight, cis" people crying about victimhood after an eternity of automatic advantage. Alma concurs. But late the next day, when she finds Maggie on her doorstep soaked from the rain and weeping, Alma is more cautious about her solidarity. Clearly in distress, Maggie stammers out h