Mon, 22 Sep 2025, 03:40 pm
America

US says ‘stands with’ Israel after ‘unconscionable’ attacks

The United States said Friday it supported ally Israel’s right to self-defense after deadly attacks as well as rocket fire from Lebanon that triggered Israeli strikes. “The targeting of innocent

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Trump released, pleads not guilty to 34 felony charges

Donald Trump was seen Tuesday leaving a New York court where he pleaded not guilty to 34 criminal counts stemming from hush-money paid to a porn star before the 2016

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Trump ‘gearing up for battle’ at New York court hearing

Former US president Donald Trump is “gearing up for a battle” ahead of his scheduled court hearing on Tuesday, his lawyer has said. Trump is expected to fly to New

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At least 26 dead after tornadoes rake US Midwest, South

Storms that dropped possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 26 people in small towns and big cities across the South and Midwest, tearing a path through the Arkansas capital,

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Biden tells Russia to release US reporter

President Joe Biden on Friday called for Russia to release Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is being held on espionage charges, while rebuffing a call from the paper’s

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Stormy Daniels ‘proud’ over Trump charges: UK media

Stormy Daniels, the ex-porn star embroiled in the sex scandal behind Donald Trump’s indictment, said in a UK newspaper interview published Friday that the criminal charges show he is “no

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‘Significant damage’ after tornado hits Arkansas: governor

A large tornado tore through Arkansas on Friday causing “significant damage,” the governor of the southern US state tweeted, as rescuers rushed to aid residents and hospitals said they were

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Ex-US president Donald Trump indicted over hush money payment

A New York grand jury on Thursday indicted Donald Trump over hush money payments made to a porn star during his 2016 campaign, making him the first former US president

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Biden calls Putin’s nuclear deployment talk ‘dangerous’

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday blasted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated plan to deploy nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, branding it “dangerous” talk. “This is dangerous kind of talk

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UK’s Queen consort Camilla: from palace margins to royal limelight

Queen Consort Camilla is taking her first steps on the international stage as wife of the British monarch, marking the end of a long and sometimes bumpy journey from palace

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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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