“After the Hunt” is now in theaters, taking audiences into a college campus hit by sexual harassment accusations. It’s a story that feels both timely and real, but is it actually true?
Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the film stars Julia Roberts as Alma, a college professor who has to grapple with both her past and her loyalties when her star student Maggie (Ayo Edebiri) accuses Hank (Andrew Garfield) of sexual harassment. Hank is both a colleague and a good friend of Alma’s, and there’s no clear indication of who’s lying.
Like we said, it feels very real.
Is it based on a true story?
Though it certainly seems like a news headline that would lend itself to a movie adaptation, “After the Hunt” is not actually based on a true story. At least, it’s not based on just one story.
Instead, the film is more of a broader look at college campuses and how they handle incidents like this, inspired by multiple real-life events — most notably, the #MeToo movement. The film itself takes place two years after the #MeToo movement reached a fever pitch.
In an interview with Marie Clare, screenwriter Nora Garrett explained that “Those cases very much impacted me, I think in a way that was difficult to quantify at the time. Watching them meet the justice system in some way, and the failures of justice that were carried out occasionally, was pretty seismic.”
“After the Hunt” is now in theaters everywhere.
