A multi-award winner for her portrayal of chef Sydney on the television series “The Bear,” Ayo Edebiri plays a PHD student who accuses a Yale Professor of rape in her latest film “After the Hunt.”
Directed by Luca Guadagnino and starring Academy Award winner Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, Edebiri plays Maggie Resnick, a fiery young intellect who also happens to be the adopted daughter of one of Yale university’s largest donors. Having experienced both privilege and bias, Maggie is hoping to live up to rumors that she is writing the best philosophy dissertation seen in years. But when she comes forward to tell her mentor professor Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts), that her own colleague, professor Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield), sexually assaulted her, she is met with stoicism. What follows unleashes a wave of public and personal chaos that blurs the truth of what really happened as secrets, lies and mixed agendas all collide in this riveting morality tale.
“It’s often our human impulse to not have the full conversation, to not talk about the messy bits that feel too hot to touch. What’s so exciting about this film and Luca’s approach is he said, let us show it all and then let’s have some real conversations about it,” shares Edebiri, an Emmy, SAG, Critics Choice Award-winning actor, writer, producer, director, and comedian, who is a tour de force both in front of and behind the camera.
Set almost entirely in and around Yale University’s downtown New Haven campus, home to some 15,000 students, this story of an elite campus in turmoil will certainly ignite conversation—not just about which people in the story are telling the truth but how status, desires, and prejudices tint our views of reality.
All three leads Roberts, Edebiri, and Garfield each bring emotional and psychological nuance to the story and the film also features a splendid performance by Edebiri, who has the benefit of a very well written role and brilliantly portrays Maggie’s vulnerability.
Cinematographer Malik Hassan Sayeed, who makes a return to feature films after a 25-year absence, creates a mood of anxiety that doesn’t rise and fall so much as spiral. For Guadagnino, who directed “Challengers,” the film was a way of exploring how to tell a story, showing all the possibilities of truth without saying one point-of-view is most valuable.
“After the Hunt” premiered in Los Angeles on Saturday. It opens in select theaters on October 10th. It expands to additional theaters October 17th with a UK release on October 22nd.
By Samantha Ofole-Prince / Photos Courtesy of Amazon Studios
