Julia Roberts gets into the skin of a university professor facing a case of sexual abuse in ‘After the Hunt’, a film that has been accompanied by controversy since its premiere in Venice for its lack of feminism, something that does not worry the actress: “If you leave the comfort of your home is to go to an uncomfortable place,” she says.
“I think you have to be afraid. If you’re not, you’re too comfortable in the art world,” Roberts said when asked about her role in the film, that of a professor who hesitates between believing her brightest student or her best friend, a fellow member of the philosophy department at elite Yale University.
An approach that many media have seen as a backlash against women who report assaults in a film that arrives this week in theaters, directed by Italian Luca Guadagnino, and in which Roberts is accompanied by Andrew Garfield, who plays Hank, the accused teacher, and Ayo Edebiri as Maggie, the student who suffers the assault.
In a meeting with a group of journalists after the presentation of the film in Venice, the actress responds with short phrases when the questions have to do with criticism of the film for showing a reality far removed from what is happening in the world, especially after the outbreak of the #MeToo movement.
“The first time I heard about him I was doing press promotion for ‘Wonder.’ Someone asked me about it in an interview. And yes, I think, like a lot of people, I thought it was not surprising at all,” she merely replied about the relationship of her character, Alma, to the cultural shift brought about by #MeToo.
Although she did admit that when she read the script she thought “the setting and also the conflicts” it posed were “really interesting”. “I was intrigued by where that came from, when it started, and what it was about,” said Roberts, who found it “fascinating” to play Alma.
“I don’t have anyone like her in my life, and understanding her – talking to Luca about her, understanding her relationship with Frederic (her husband), her relationship with Hank, and all the decisions she makes in the film – was really an exciting study of a person,” said the ‘Erin Brockovich’ star.
The challenge of the role for Julia Roberts
Because for the actress, the essential thing is to “find something different” in the characters she chooses. “That becomes more difficult the more you work, but also more interesting. As you get older, your point of view and your resources expand tremendously,” she reflected.
One character, Alma, who initially has a very close relationship with Maggie, changes drastically when the assault occurs, providing a clear portrayal of how each generation deals differently with social change.
“There has always been this need for the younger generation to surpass the previous one, and I think that’s healthy and important. For us, opening up to a conversation with someone who may have another perspective is vital, because it allows us to see things from another point of view,” said the actress.
“I like to think that it’s not so much a generational divide, but rather a kind of tug-of-war between people trying to impose themselves on each other,” said Guadagnino, sitting next to the protagonist of his film on the terrace of a luxury hotel in Venice.
For the director of ‘Call Me By Your Name’, everything that the characters in ‘After the Hunt’ go through “are human tensions that could exist in any other environment” and that occur when the objective is to dominate the other.
The idea, he said, was “to create a moral thriller, to explore what lies behind the facade of these people and how they try, each from their own perspective of the truth, to confront the other’s”. And, in addition, “to allow the audience to form their own opinion about what they experienced.
For Garfield, the film is like a mirror for the viewer: “It invites him to confront himself, his own part of evil, his heroism, his vulnerability and all those indescribable zones in between that don’t fit into any of those extremes,” reported Agencia EFE.
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