Tue, 23 Sep 2025, 09:46 am
Feature

With G20 event, India seeks to project normalcy in disputed Kashmir

As India prepares to host a meeting of tourism officials from the Group of 20 in the disputed region of Kashmir, authorities have deployed elite commandos and stepped up security

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Some Arab leaders turned ‘blind eye’ to war – Zelensky

Volodymyr Zelensky has accused some Arab leaders of “turning a blind eye” to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, ahead of his trip to the G7 in Japan. The Ukrainian president made

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Ukraine war: Russian launches ninth missile attack on Kyiv this month

Ukraine’s capital Kyiv has been attacked from the air by Russia for the ninth time this month. Speaking before the all-clear was given, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a fire in

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Asia is spending big to battle low birth rates – will it work?

Falling birth rates are a major concern for some of Asia’s biggest economies. Governments in the region are spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to reverse the trend. Will

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Why Pakistan shut down the internet

The battle between Imran Khan’s supporters and the powerful Pakistani military has this week been raging on two fronts – on the streets and on social media. And on one

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Turkey decides: Voters face stark choices for presidency

Turks are at a historic turning point – choosing between two front-runners for the presidency offering dramatically different paths for their country’s future. After more than 20 years in power,

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Thailand election: The young radicals shaking up politics

In a cramped shophouse in one of Bangkok’s nondescript outer suburbs, a small group of volunteers feverishly pack leaflets in preparation for the daily ritual of canvassing for votes. This

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Charles III is King of 15 countries. But for how much longer?

Across most Commonwealth realms – those countries in which he is monarch – the debate over whether to move to a republic is a live issue, albeit to varying degrees.

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Muslim population misinformation fuels Islamophobia in India

Amit Upadhyay repeats online misinformation as he claims to know why India’s population is growing: he says his Muslim neighbours are having too many babies, so Hindu women have a

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Coronation: Public asked to swear allegiance to King Charles

People watching the Coronation will be invited to join a “chorus of millions” to swear allegiance to the King and his heirs, organisers say. The public pledge is one of

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The megastar plays a philosophy professor shaken by a student’s sexual assault allegation against a colleague in Luca Guadagnino’s new film – and she’s easily the best thing about it. Julia Roberts doesn’t make many films these days. She was in Leave the World Behind in 2023; in 2022, there was her tropical romantic comedy with George Clooney, Ticket to Paradise; and then we have to jump all the way back to 2018 for her previous turn in Ben Is Back. But you can see why she chose to star in After the Hunt, a contentious campus drama directed by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, Challengers). Roberts is on screen for almost every one of its 139 minutes, and she is the monumental centre around which its chaos and controversy swirl. It’s the kind of heavyweight role that gets awards nominations if it goes to the right person – and Roberts is definitely the right person. Her character is Alma, a philosophy professor at Yale University. Striding regally around its leafy quadrangles in a chic white suit that matches her blonde hair, this combatively intelligent alpha female is adored by everyone who knows her. Her husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) is resigned to the fact that he loves her more than she loves him, and is willing to make whimsical jokes about the imbalance; Hank (Andrew Garfield), a would-be rebellious friend and colleague, is even more flirtatious with her than he is with everyone else; and her favourite PhD student, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), worships her – which could explain why she is Alma’s favourite PhD student. It seems as if the status quo might soon be upset, though, as either Alma or Hank – or perhaps both – is expected to be granted permanent tenure. But then something far more drastic happens. The day after a boozy party in Alma and Frederik’s book-lined flat, Maggie tells Alma that Hank walked her home and then “crossed a line”. Alma is sympathetic – but only up to a point. There is no evidence of assault, so she isn’t sure whether to trust the word of a new friend over an old one, especially at such a critical moment in her career. And maybe, her thinking goes, lines were crossed at the party anyway, considering that teachers and students were hugging each other while knocking back expensive wine. “Roberts’ Alma is a coiled spring: her steely stillness makes her ferocity all the more powerful” It’s refreshing to see a grown-up Hollywood film that takes on contemporary issues: feminism, cancel culture, identity politics, and the generation gap. But After the Hunt is more of an admirable project than an engaging drama, because it never stops reminding you of how clever it wants to be. Guadagnino keeps showing off his quirky camera angles and intrusive music choices. The screenplay, by Nora Garrett, squeezes too much philosophical jargon into the dialogue, and too many tangential scenes and subplots into the structure. You might think that the alleged assault would be a big enough deal for any film, but Alma is given mysterious abdominal pains and guilty secrets, and Maggie is overloaded with significance as a queer, black, plagiarism-prone young woman with a non-binary partner and rich parents who are major donors to the university. In theory, viewers of After the Hunt should leave the cinema arguing about its subject matter. In practice, they’re more likely to be asking each other what was going on and what it meant. It’s all a bit much, basically. Garfield, miscast as a denim-clad dude who is, it is implied, roughly the same age as Roberts’ character, shouts and swears and waves his arms with a quantity-over-quality approach to acting. Stuhlbarg’s flouncing and sing-song delivery are presumably meant to be irritating, but perhaps not as irritating as they actually are. At the heart of it all, though, Roberts is a different matter. She understands that less can be more. Her Alma is a coiled spring: her steely stillness makes her ferocity all the more powerful and her pain all the more intense. Her muttering is scarier than Garfield’s yelling, and when she glares at someone, they stay glared at. It’s an expertly controlled performance which demonstrates why Roberts has been a Hollywood icon for so long, and why she could well be in line for her second Oscar, 25 years after Erin Brockovich. After the Hunt would have been better if everyone else involved had had some of that control, too.

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