Tue, 23 Sep 2025, 11:03 am
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Cost of living: People cut back on food shopping as price rises bite

Households are cutting back on food shopping as the rising cost of living bites into budgets. Nearly half of adults surveyed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said they

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French elections: What now for opposition left and far-right?

They were the big winners of France’s elections, tearing apart President Emmanuel Macron’s majority. The broad left-wing alliance under Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Marine Le Pen’s far right were described as

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Sri Lanka should have gone to IMF sooner, says central bank governor

Sri Lanka could have avoided its current economic turmoil if it had gone to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout sooner, the country’s central bank governor says. P

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France gears up for new battle: Macron v Mélenchon

There were times, during the elections here five years ago, when President Emmanuel Macron would sound almost messianic about the potential of his political party and his project for France.

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Millions to get first cost-of-living payment in UK from July 14

The first of two payments to help the poorest households with the cost of living will hit people’s bank accounts from 14 July, the government says. More than eight million

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Queen Elizabeth II becomes second-longest serving monarch

The Queen has become the second-longest serving sovereign monarch in history. As of Monday, she has been on the throne for 70 years and 127 days, second only to Louis

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Are attacks on Christians in Nigeria on the rise?

The recent killing of dozens worshippers at a Catholic church in south-western Nigeria has reignited concern about religious violence in the country. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an umbrella

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Rwanda asylum plan: UK court allows removal flight planned for Tuesday

A flight to take asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda next Tuesday has been allowed to go ahead by the High Court. Campaigners failed in an initial legal bid

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Australia pick three pacers for first Sri Lanka T20

Australia have picked three pacemen for the first T20 international against Sri Lanka on Tuesday, hoping their World Cup-winning formula will work in their favour again. With conditions in Colombo

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Why Australia is declaring a ‘new era’ in the Pacific

Australia has long been considered a “big brother” by many small Pacific nations, but its approach in recent times has been tearing the family apart, some say. This is something

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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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