Julia Roberts looks to 'stir it up' with cancel culture film

Julia Roberts said she hoped to "stir it all up" for viewers of her new film about a university professor grappling with fraught US campus politics, as the Hollywood star made her debut at the Venice Film Festival on Friday.

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The star walked the red carpet at the city’s festival for the first time in her career at the premiere of “After the Hunt,' a cancel-culture and MeToo-themed psychological drama from Italian director Luca Guadagnino.

Early reviews could make difficult reading for the “Pretty Woman” actress, however. The Hollywood Reporter wondered how Guadagnino “could deliver something so dour and airless.” While Variety praised Roberts’ performance, it nevertheless described the film as “muddled.”

Roberts, speaking at a news conference ahead of the premiere, said the film did not aim to answer questions, but provoke them.

She plays a Yale University professor haunted by a secret from her past after a student accuses one of her colleagues of sexual assault. Questions over truth and fiction, and whether characters are reliable narrators, course through the film.