Tag: Andrew Garfield

After The Hunt

2025   Amazon MGM Studios

Rated:  R

Length:  2 hr  18min

Drama ~ Psychological Thriller

Directed by:  Luca Guadagnino

Starring:  Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny.

Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable.

FROM AMAZON PRIME:

AFTER THE HUNT is a gripping pychological thriller about a college professor (Julia Roberts) who finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star student (Ayo Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Andrew Garfield), and a dark secret from her own past threatens to come into the light.

“A Gripping Psychological Thriller…..”

I would hardly call it gripping, borderline boring, and definitely not thrilling. More of a “where is all this leading?” quandary as you watch and wonder. The very beginning of the movie starts out with the very loud ticking of a clock. So loud it was immediately annoying, and I had to pause the movie to make sure it wasn’t something else I was hearing. It wasn’t, it was in the movie soundtrack. It was odd because they didn’t even show a clock, I kept waiting for one. It seemed to last forever until it finally abated, only to show up obnoxiously halfway through the movie, just as loud. The only thing I can assume is that it was meant for dramatic effect, apparently to add a heightened sense of tension. Which, as far as I can tell, failed in it’s mission because it seemed to have no relation to the film or the storyline.

The Characters:

In the beginning, as we meet the characters in the movie, Alma (Julia Roberts) and her husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) are throwing a dinner party at their lavish house. Alma, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) and Hank (Andrew Garfield) are engaged in a very philosophical debate about the current state of man and education. It came across as very contrived philosophy forced onto actors playing the part. Hank and Alma are both up for tenure at Yale, and Maggie is Alma’s brightest student. Hank and Alma were also lovers in the past, as we find out later in the movie, which is part of the supposed tension and drama. It didn’t really come across that way, although there was some solid chemistry between Julia and Andrew. Hubbie Frederik came across as a bit of a weirdo, it was hard to imagine that Julia and Michael were a married couple, more like The Odd Couple.

The Actors: 

We all love Julia Roberts, hopefully. As I watched her I couldn’t help but compare her in this to some of her other roles like Pretty Woman, Ocean’s Eleven, The Pelican Brief, and one of my all time favorite movies, Erin Brokovich. I don’t think this role was right for her, although she did a fine job with it. I think that had more to do with the directing and the story itself. Andrew Garfield is a Streaming Movie Night Favorite: Hacksaw Ridge, We Live In Time, Spider Man….Andrew is a charismatic, lovable Character Actor. He does some fine dramatic acting in this movie, but again, some of it fell flat thanks to the directing. Ayo Edebiri as Maggie came across as contrived, clunky in her motions and scenes. People don’t act like that, pun intended, but again I think it was the script, story or the directing.

The Less Than Thrilling Drama:

I didn’t set out to bash this movie, although as I look at what I have written, it sure feels that way. There were scenes that really didn’t make sense to me, for example:

    • Maggie rooting through the bathroom linen closest looking for toilet paper, ransacking the entire closet all the way to the bottom shelf. Then leaning over and in far enough to find the envelope Alma had taped to the underside of the shelf, to hide it from the world. Then opening it and taking something from inside it……
    • Frederik getting upset at the dinner table with Maggie for no apparent reason, then turning into a complete ass, grabbing his plate and storming off. Then playing music at such a loud obnoxious volume…for what? That was not clear to me.
    • Alma stealing blank prescriptions from her friend Dr. Sayers office and then forging a prescription for pain meds while she is trying to walk the straight and narrow line to a Tenure position at Yale. Doesn’t make sense.

I feel like I need to stop the bashing, again, that is not what I intended when I started writing this, but that is what I feel like I am doing. My expectations were high given the star power of Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield. But for me, it didn’t deliver. They were great but the movie itself felt disjointed, and as a whole, contrived and over dramatized. Somewhere about an hour and a half into it I thought, “How long has it been, how long is this movie?” I was a little dismayed when I saw I still had a ways to go.

The hook at the end, the secret that Alma was hiding, the thing that Maggie discovered about Alma and tried to use against her, was anti-climatic. I think it was supposed to pull it all together but it just kind of fell flat. It was disappointing, I found myself thinking, “That’s it? That’s what I waded almost two and a half hours through…….for that?”

So while it features some great acting by Julia Roberts and Andrew Garfield, the direction and story felt like they missed the mark. In hindsight I do see what it could have been, a better movie…a great movie. But for me, it didn’t get there. I wouldn’t waste almost two and a half hours on After The Hunt again.

We Live In Time

New Movie After The Hunt Debuts On Prime Thursday November 20, 2025

AFTER THE HUNT

“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election.”

–Otto Von Bismarck

FROM AMAZON MGM STUDIOS:

In Luca Guadagnino’s thriller, written by Nora Garrett, a devastating campus accusation unleashes a torrent of public and personal chaos that blurs the truth of what really happened beyond recognition. Secrets, deceptions, furies, and mixed agendas for the film’s five central characters soon collide in the morality tale that is After The Hunt. And as the tension mounts, the film becomes an intentional provocation, a mirror on this modern moment, probing the dynamics of power, privilege, community—and how they interplay with a whole host of human frailties.

After The Hunt tells the blisteringly psychological story of gifted, unapologetically ambitious philosophy professor Alma Imhoff, who is in an all-out bid for the tenure she knows her work merits. But when Alma’s prize student Maggie suddenly asks for help, levelling charges against Alma’s colleague and close friend Hank Gibson, it threatens to uncover Alma’s own long-buried private history.

Academy Award® winner Julia Roberts is joined by Academy Award® nominee Andrew Garfield, Emmy Award® winner Ayo Edebiri, Academy Award® nominee Chloë Sevigny, and SAG Award® winner Michael Stuhlbarg creating an all-star cast each matched in craft and versatility. Their intricate performances underline After The Hunt’s stark refusal to provide easy answers and instead barrel into the blurred, divided territory we all vividly recognize as the world we inhabit right now.

This visceral sense of life as we feel it is a touchstone quality of storytelling in the auteur vision of Luca Guadagnino. With his meticulous cinematic craft and love of hard questions, his audiences’ minds are often active long after the credits have rolled. For Guadagnino, the story of an elite campus in turmoil was a magnet precisely because it felt destined to 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.

We Live In Time

2024   A24

Rated:  R

Length:  1 hr  48min

Drama ~ Romance

Directed by:  John Crowley

Starring:  Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh.

Every Minute Counts

Andrew Garfield stars as Tobias Durand, a sales representative for The Weetabix Breakfast Cereal Company. He is going through a divorce and has received the divorce papers. In a hotel, after just getting out of the shower, he sits down in his robe and decides to sign the papers. The pen quits writing part way through his signature. Frustrated he grabs another and it doesn’t work, then another. Tobias completely loses it, throws the pen and leaves the hotel in his robe heading for the corner store down the street. He purchases a pen and heads back to the hotel walking on the side of the street when…….

Almut Brühl (Florence Pugh) happens by in her car, just as Tobias steps into the street, and hits him. Tobias passes out in the street and comes to later in the hospital with a neck brace and some pretty good facial bruises. He looks over and sees Almut who explains who she is and what happened. She apologizes and offers to buy him and his wife dinner at the restaurant where she is the Chef. He agrees and, not wanting to talk about his going through a divorce, the next evening he shows up alone. When Almut finally comes out of the kitchen, she asks Tobias about his wife and he explains that they are going through a divorce. In the very short time they have met each other, they both have feelings for each other and Almut invites him to go home with her.

And that is the start of their decade long romance and the beginning of a life together. And as with any couple they experience love, laughter, joy and heartbreak. They must also contend with some serious medical news about Almut, which they must make major life changing decisions about. They decide to enjoy every minute of every day, no matter what. As we all should. Throughout all of it they share their commitment and deep love for each other as they navigate the changes that life always seems to throw at you. Throughout the movie there are flashbacks going back to certain moments in their history together that reflect on their current circumstances. And you can see how one thing led to another. It is a little hard to keep up with, trying to figure out when they are flashing back to. But in the end it all makes sense.

I am being a little vague about the details because I don’t want to spoil it. I think Andrew and Florence did a fantastic job together with this movie. I honestly don’t think anybody else could have pulled this movie and story off the way they did. They were meant to play Tobias and Almut, their chemistry together carried this movie. I liked it, I really enjoyed Florence and Andrew together as Almut and Tobias. It isn’t a Hallmark Movie with a happy ending, you know, everybody smiling and riding off into the sunset, but I thought it was a real good Romantic Drama. That’s two thumbs up for Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield and We Live In Time.