After the Hunt,the audience is left to decide whether Hank is the culprit or whether Maggie is a liar in the end.
This is a story by director Luca Guadagnino which dives deep into the crisis that people often feel in their lives: who to trust?
In the movie's plot, Ayo Edebiri, who plays Maggie, a college student, accuses her professor, Hank, portrayed by Andrew Garfield, of sexually assaulting her.
This alleged sordid incident happened after a party that Alma, who is another professor played by Julia Roberts, throws at her home.
Later, when Maggie confides in her teacher about what Hank did to her, Alma is having an issue in fully believing her.
That's because the professor was in this situation years ago, but she wasn't the victim. The movie reveals that at the age of 15, Alma lied about her boyfriend's sexual assault because she was upset that he had broken up with her.
On top of this, Hank, in the movie, is depicted as a good friend of Alma, which makes her further uncertain about Maggie's allegation.
Now, Luca weighs in on a fan's query about what really happened between the teacher and the student. "For me, the answer is always in the eyes of the audience."
He continues, "How can I let an audience find their own footing on something if I preemptively decide what's the truth of things?"
Andrew, in the same interview with the director on EW, adds that he has a fair idea of how involved his character is in wrongdoing, but, he shares, "I won't say what I decided Hank believed about the events in question. That is better, I think, kept private."
Luca, meanwhile, in the final scene, shares that in his idea, "I think after the screams and the cries are settled, time kind of heals the wounds."
He notes, "And the blanket of snow puts everything to rest. After the hunt, what remains of this scenario of ruins—of moral ruins—that these people have been creating between one another, and particularly these two women?"
"At the end, for me, it's like, is there playfulness? Is this a conversation of reconciliation, or is this a new way of mannerism? Is this a new way of acting again, a different self, so that they are still into the hunt?"
After the Hunt is playing in cinemas.