Luca Guadagnino's ‘After The Hunt' Ending, Explained
Key Takeaways
- The film "After the Hunt" centers on sexual assault allegations made by a PhD candidate, Maggie, against a professor, Hank, at Yale.
- Alma, a senior professor and friend to Hank, is forced to choose sides, which impacts her own career advancement and tenure bid.
- Alma reveals a deeply buried secret: she falsely accused a childhood abuser of sexual assault, leading to his suicide, complicating her current moral stance.
- The conflict between Alma and Maggie escalates publicly, including a physical altercation where Maggie slaps Alma.
- Five years later, Alma and Maggie meet for a final conversation, achieving a reconciliation where they both affirm they have moved on and are happy.
Filmmaker Luca Guadagnino ventures into philosophical drama with "After the Hunt," starring Julia Roberts as Alma Imhoff, a Yale philosophy professor whose life is disrupted by sexual assault allegations against her colleague Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield) by PHD candidate Maggie Resnick (Ayo Edebiri). Caught in the middle as both Hank and Maggie seek her support, Alma's decision to side with Maggie contributes to Hank being fired amidst their tenure competition. The conflict deepens when Alma reveals a profound secret from her past to her husband Frederick: as a child, she was abused by her father's friend, an experience she later falsely reported as abuse out of jealousy, leading to the man's suicide. Alma still harbors complex feelings, claiming she loved her abuser, which her psychotherapist husband struggles to reconcile. The film jumps five years forward to December 2024, where Alma, now the department dean, meets Maggie for a reconciliation over coffee. During this meeting, Maggie acknowledges that she has moved past seeking retribution, and Alma confirms she is genuinely happy, concluding the film with a sense of closure for their fraught relationship.
