Spoiler-Free Overview
Man, I absolutely adore a great screenplay. You know the kind – the ones with the characters that literally leap off the page and are fully fleshed out via dialog and settings? Well, that’s what we have here with After the Hunt. Just a brilliant, mind-ripping drama, with gloriously complicated settings and fantastic characters. Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Nora Garrett, After the Hunt is a psychological, academic-thriller set in an elite university environment. It stars Julia Roberts as Alma Imhoff, a respected philosophy professor whose professional and personal world begins to unravel when a promising young student, Maggie Resnick (played by Ayo Edebiri), accuses Alma’s colleague and long-time friend Hank Gibson (played by Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault. As the accusation reverberates through the campus, Alma is forced to contend not only with her loyalties to Hank and her student, but also with a secret from her own past.
Detailed Walk-through (Spoilers Ahead)
Setting and Introduction
The movie opens with Alma Imhoff, an established professor at Yale University, navigating the pressures of tenure, professional expectation, and her public persona. Hank Gibson is her friend and peer, also well-regarded… he is suave, confident, charming in that academic elitist kind of way. Maggie Resnick is Alma’s “rising star” student and protégé, ambitious, intellectually sharp (or at least projected to be), but with some cracks in her façade.
Early on we see the dynamics: Alma enjoys her status, the social cachet, the respect. Hank is comfortable in his privilege. Maggie, younger and less experienced in the system… she obviously both admires it and resents it at the same time. The film establishes the milieu of the university: status games, mentorship as power dynamic, gender politics, the skeletons in the faculty closet.
The Accusation and Rising Tension
The central turning point occurs when Maggie accuses Hank of sexual assault — a “walk-home after a party” scenario that triggers Alma’s intervention. Alma is caught in the middle: she must decide whether to support the student, protect the colleague, and safeguard her own reputation. As this plays out, the film also begins to hint at Alma’s buried past: something she was accused of (or implicated in) as a teenager, which she eventually recanted. This all sets the stage for her dramatic internal conflict as the current drama and chaos plays out.
We then see a sequence of investigations, conversations, flashbacks, conflicting narratives. Maggie’s account is firm: Hank walked her home, something occurred. But the narrative blurs: Maggie has flaws, Hank has charm but arrogance, Alma has vested interests. The film leans into ambiguity: Who to believe? What is truth in this environment of institutional inertia, reputation, ambition? For example, Hank claims Maggie plagiarized a paper, he confronted her, she retaliated with the claim. The film works super hard to not hand over a simple “he did it / he didn’t do it” verdict. (In that regard, it totally reminds me of The Spinning Man (which you should all see if you haven’t already.))
Character Flaws and Unraveling
What I found most compelling is how all the characters are deeply flawed.
- Alma: On the surface poised, elegant, the embodiment of “having made it” in a male-dominated institution. But inside she’s protective of her status, terrified of the consequences of any scandal. Her past accusation haunts her. Her husband, a psychiatrist (Michael Stuhlbarg) is supportive but removed. She drinks. Deals with hidden chronic health issues. She manipulates. She has agency, yes, but also vulnerability.
- Hank: Charismatic, brilliant, seemingly on top of his game — but that very confidence hides fragility. When confronted he unravels. He plays the protector, then the accused. His entitlement emerges. He misreads power. He is reckless in a privileged way.
- Maggie: Young, ambitious, earnest at first glance — yet she is also calculating. Perhaps she is a victim, but she is also aware of how to play the system. She has flaws: impatience, resentment, guilt. She isn’t a perfect victim.
By the midpoint, the dynamic has shifted: Alma begins to suspect Hank more; Maggie begins to assert herself against the institution; Hank begins to lose control. The university’s machinery—tenure reviews, departmental politics, fear of scandal—looms large.
Climax and Ending
In the penultimate and final sections, the narrative becomes more direct. Alma and Hank confront each other: there’s a pivotal sequence in Alma’s “other apartment” (her second home or retreat) where she returns to find Hank passed out in her bed. This is a massive reveal: Hank, drunk and disoriented, blurts out truths and half-truths: that Maggie’s accusation ruined him; that he only ever broke the rules for her (Alma). She denies him. He kisses her, she shoves him off, he flees. This scene strongly suggests Hank behaved in a non-consensual way with Alma — and perhaps sideways with Maggie as well.
Then comes the epilogue: five years later we see Maggie and Alma re-encountering each other. The world has moved on; no clear legal judgment appears to have been delivered. In this last scene, there’s a moment when Maggie asks Alma if she is truly happy, and Alma tells Maggie that she really is. And that is when Maggie declares that, well then, Alma has won. Was Alma honest in her declaration that she was happy? Was Maggie sarcastic in her declaration that Alma has won? The scene is literally as opaque as dialog gets, and yet, it feels as if we know that the characters are lying to one another. One more flourish to add to the cascading layers of vagaries between the two of them. And yet, I got the sense that ambiguity is precisely the point. The “win” may be the public exposure, or the psychological victory of being believed, or the internal victory of reconciling one’s truth. But because all the characters are flawed, the win is hollow, ambiguous… better, Pyrrhic.
What the Ending Means
Victory in a Pyrrhic Sense
When Maggie tells Alma that she won, it might first appear as a concession. She’s handed the game to Alma. Alma after all, is the head of the department now, she’s physically manhandled the situation to her own ends. But by “winning,” she also became part of a system of power she once opposed. She’s compromised. The victory doesn’t feel like triumph so much as survival.
For Maggie, the once brilliant wunderkind, she seems to have banished her desire to become Alma. She’s given up dressing like her and striving to be her. She’s found her own path and is determined to take it regardless of where it takes her. And from Hank’s perspective, the “win” is something he has lost: status, career, respect. But the movie doesn’t show the classic downfall or punishment — instead, we see the private unraveling. Hank’s “loss” is internal.
Truth, Power and Performance
One of the major themes is the performance of truth. As the movie ended, you could hear the call out of the Director’s “CUT!,” which underscored that what we have watched is a constructed narrative. Alma and Maggie’s final meeting—and the line “you won”—is less about objective truth than about who controls the story. Maggie may recognize that Alma now controls the narrative, that she has won acknowledgment. But we also agree with Maggie’s slowness to believe that Alma is truly happy.
The film suggests that in high-stakes institutional settings, truth doesn’t always align with justice, and “winning” may simply mean being seen or heard rather than being entirely right. The ambiguity of the ending means “winning” doesn’t equate to moral clarity; rather, it equates to dominance of the narrative.
Flawed People in a Flawed System
Though the movie seemingly declared a “winner,” we didn’t receive a winner in a Lord of the Rings sort of way. We didn’t watch as a moral right won over a moral wrong. Instead the audience was given this Pyrrhic victory which tasted bitter in our collective mouths. She won? What did she win? Are we sure that she won? Really? Instead we all know that Alma’s winning implicated her in a rather broken system. Aligned her with a morally ambiguous problem than made her part of the solution. Alma might have won the acknowledgement, but she didn’t win purity or peace. Maggie may have “lost” in some ways but perhaps gained something: the ability to see herself.
Ambiguity as the Point
The director has stated that he wants the audience to decide what “win” means. By refusing to offer a clean verdict — “He did it/She didn’t” or “She is victim/He is villain” — the film emphasizes how messy real life is. So the line “you won” invites reflection: What did Alma win? What did Maggie lose or gain? What did Hank lose? Because none of them are free of stain, none of them are heroes in the classic sense.
Your View: Why It Works
The greatness of the film After the Hunt lies in its characters, in how they struggle to keep their heads above water even when they seem on top. Alma, still polished and poised at the start, is revealed to be damaged and vulnerable. Hank, once secure, is undone. Maggie, ambitious and sharp, is both victim and agent. The “win” of the film isn’t a triumph of goodness, but a moment of truth in the middle of dysfunction.
Final Thoughts on After the Hunt
In sum: After the Hunt is far more than a standard “campus scandal” thriller. It is a layered meditation on power, status, narrative, and the moral ambiguity of all involved. It’s anchored by bravura performances (especially Roberts and Garfield) and a screenplay that allows no simple heroes or villains. If one sees the characters as “a mess and all struggling to keep their heads above water” even as they seem on top, then the ending works as a beautifully grim reflection of that struggle: the apparent winner is neither clean nor triumphant — just the one who managed to survive.
This is a messy, complicated film, one that revels in the obvious chaos of it all. After the Hunt doesn’t let you feel comfortable; it makes you uneasy — and that’s its strength. The “you won” line is not a pat conclusion; it’s a quiet, uneasy acknowledgment of survival and power in a flawed system.
Edited by: CY
