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In wealthy Dubai, poor get free bread from machines

With the cost of living surging, free hot bread distribution for the poor has been introduced in Dubai, a rich Gulf emirate where millionaires rub shoulders with hard-working migrants. The

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Shinzo Abe: Why a state funeral for slain ex-PM is controversial

A week ago, the global “great and good” were gathered in London for the state funeral of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II. Now many of them are heading to the other

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Kate Middleton to Catherine: Becoming Princess of Wales

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Iran unrest: What’s going on with Iran and the internet?

Activists in Iran are expressing concern about widespread internet outages and residents being unable to access social media. Anger has circulated online after over a week of protests sparked by

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Father’s death in Covid-19 motivates son to develop virus prevention booth

The scourge of coronavirus is still being felt in some parts of the world. A rise in virus-affected patients over the past few weeks has also created a fresh concern

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Queen’s funeral: Who is in the main procession?

Thousands of members of the armed forces from the UK and abroad are taking part in the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II – one of the grandest ceremonial events

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How the Queen’s Christian faith went beyond duty

Almost every aspect of official ceremony surrounding the death of the Queen has been steeped in religious significance. But accounts from those close to Elizabeth II emphatically suggest that to

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Princess Anne: The can-do will-do royal

There is one great final duty that many children feel towards their parents: the duty to see them safely and peacefully to their last rest. Almost all who take on

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‘Just doing my job,’ says record-setting Nepali climber

Summiting the world’s 8,000-metre mountains is the ultimate bucket list dream for ambitious climbers, a feat managed by fewer than 50 people, and Sanu Sherpa is the first to do

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Crown Jewels: The royal family’s precious gems

The Crown Jewels form the centrepiece of the royal coronation, and symbolise the pomp and history of the British monarchy over the centuries. – The Imperial State Crown – The

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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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