Tue, 23 Sep 2025, 10:38 am
Feature

How heat transformed the Paris Olympics in 100 years

From time in saunas to turning off fans, athletes have been bracing for extreme heat at the Olympics. A century on from Paris’ last Olympics, Isabelle Gerretsen and Miriam Quick

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Youth works to spread scientific knowledge among everyone

In a world where curiosity knows no bounds, Muhammad Shawon Mahmud, a Jahangirnagar University student founded BigyanPriyo, a science-based online educational platform, to spread scientific knowledge among people. Fuelled by

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Quotes of the Day (7 July 2024)

Welcome to “Quotes of the Day.” Each day, we share seven inspiring and thought-provoking quotes to uplift and motivate you. Enjoy these daily doses of wisdom and let them enrich

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From legend to reality: Palace finding hints at lost kingdom in Gaibandha

Unearthing the secrets of a forgotten king! Archaeologists have stumbled upon a massive structure and a trove of artefacts hidden beneath a local legend. The site, known as the mound

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5 billion people suffered extreme heat in June

Nearly five billion people globally, including 619 million from India, experienced climate-change-driven extreme heat over nine days in June, according to a new analysis by an independent group of scientists

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‘Mujib and Independence’: Immerse yourself in history

A treasure trove has opened for those who want to get a clear understanding of the country’s history and fight for independence, and the life and struggle of Father of

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How long will a disabled rickshaw puller’s financial hardship last?

“Hey, will you go?” I asked a rickshaw puller who was just waiting for a passenger on the road. As I was in a hurry, I sat on the rickshaw

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Child marriage: A union that robs a girl of smile

Even when 13-year-old Jasmin got married in 2006, she had a normal life like any other cheerful teenage girl. However, her life started to change after the birth of her

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A symphony of blooms: The dazzling display of summer flowers

While summer in Bangladesh is often celebrated for its abundance of juicy fruits and diverse fishes, there is another aspect that deserves equal attention – the breathtaking display of seasonal

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Everest? All in a day’s work for record climber Kami Rita Sherpa

Scaling the world’s highest peak is all in a day’s work for 54-year-old Nepali mountaineer Kami Rita Sherpa, a man breezily modest about having set foot on the summit 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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