Tue, 23 Sep 2025, 10:38 am
Opinion

August Coup and Role of Conspirators

To make a political coup a success is not the easiest thing to perform in the context of any country of the world. Such an effort was more difficult to

read more

15th August Massacre and the Enemy Within

15th August is a day of mourning in Bangladesh. On this day in the early morning of 15th August, 1975 the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman with

read more

Learning from Bangabandhu

Standing on verge of the 46th death of Bangabandhu it appears that he was not only the architect of Bangladesh but his role was wider. For paying homage to a

read more

Thunderbolts: A Terrible Monster

In Chapainawabganj, 16 bridesmaids were killed by lightning and it has broken the hearts of people across the country. Thunderbolt is a natural phenomenon, but at the present time, it

read more

Taliban kills civilians, assault women as they capture new areas Afghanistan

Taliban has stepped up its offensive, attacking Afghan cities and killing people in the backdrop of the US forces leaving the country after two decades of prolonged war. Now, the

read more

PAF workhorse limps on faulty engine

The Pakistan Air Force’s workhorse, Chinese designed  JF-17 Thunder, is hobbled with defective engines, cutting down its operational life and capability. The JF-17 “Thunder` is a low cost, light weight,

read more

Bangamata: A Perennial Source of Inspiration for Bangabandhu

People from all corners always recognise Bangamata Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib with the most profound respect for her immense contributions to the Nation. People universally acclaim that behind every successful man,

read more

Sheikh Fazilatunnesa, My Mother

It is August. My mother was born in this month. August also heralds birth of my brother Kamal who is two years’ junior to me. His birthday falls on August

read more

Tagore’s Thoughts on Active Society and Today’s Bangladesh

Besides a poet and litterateur of global repute who won the first Nobel Prize from Asia, Rabindranath Tagore was an accomplished social reformer. His thoughts on society and economy remain

read more

Sheikh Kamal: The pioneer of modern sports

Sheikh Kamal, the martyred eldest son of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is a significant name in the country’s sports arena as he had taken drastic steps

read more

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.

© All rights reserved © 2019 WeeklyBangladeshNY.Net
Theme Dwonload From ThemesBazar.Com