Tue, 23 Sep 2025, 10:56 am
Feature

Dhaka Gate: Historic but left to decay

Be it Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate or Delhi’s India Gate — all these structures are the symbols of the respective cities and testimony of their rich history

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Arrested and beaten in Kazakhstan, say activists

The armed men in uniforms checked every ward, shouting that they were looking for people wounded in mass unrest that had left scores dead. Asel, who had been shot in

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Joe Biden one year: How is he doing so far?

When he took office as the 46th US president, Joe Biden declared that his ascension was the “triumph not of a candidate, but of a cause – the cause of

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Your eyes hold the key to your true biological age, study finds

The eyes may offer a “window into the soul,” as poets say, but they also have a lot to say about your health. Dry eyes can be a sign of

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Experts stress social safety for children

A 13-year old teenager Aklima Akhter (not her real name) of Kurigram used to be teased by local Romeos on her way to and from the school. Day by day

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Why thieves are snatching French bulldogs across the US

The two thieves who brutally robbed 27-year-old Marieke Bayens at gunpoint on a California street were not after her purse — or her. They wanted the little dog at the

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Massive mangrove forestry planned to protect wildlife and expand forest coverage

The government has taken a plan to create mangrove forestry in 17000 hectors of land during 2021-22 to 2023-24 fiscal aiming to protect and preserve forestry and wildlife, according to

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How the soaring cost of living is hitting Sri Lankans hard

“Cooking gas cylinder prices have almost doubled and we cannot afford it anymore,” says Niluka Dilrukshi. The 31 year-old mother-of-four has always cooked with gas to prepare food for her

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How rapid tests changed the pandemic

Lateral flow tests are now part of life for much of the the UK. Billions of pounds of public money have been spent on test kits. Has it all been

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Colombian dies publicly under new euthanasia policy

Victor Escobar decided to die and to do so publicly, becoming one of the first Latin Americans to end their life without suffering from a terminal disease, under a ground-breaking

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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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