After The Hunt an overstuffed culture war drama, crime caper Caught Stealing entertains

AFTER THE HUNT (M18) 122 minutes, showing on Prime Video ★★☆☆☆ The story: Italian auteur Luca Guadagnino steers an American philosophy professor, Alma Imhoff (Julia Roberts), through a sexual assault scandal involving her colleague-lover and her prized student.

- Whang Yee Ling

(From far left) Matt Smith and Austin Butler in Caught Stealing. PHOTO: SONY PICTURES

(SONY PICTURES)

Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) claims she was raped after a drunken party, and handsy assistant professor Hank (Andrew Garfield) maintains she is fabricating the vengeful accusation against him because he caught her plagiarising her PhD dissertation.

Both expect Alma to advocate for them.

Set in Yale University in the United States during the 2019 #MeToo movement, After The Hunt is, however, not so straightforward a "he said, she said", not when Maggie is the black gay daughter of the institution's millionaire donors smitten with her mentor Alma.

It is a contest between optics and ethics complicated by identity politics, class entitlement and generational differences.

Alma is irked by Maggie's eagerness to publicise the injustice.

With her tenure at stake, she is weighing the correct, rather than truthful, response to the furore.