In the movies, and sometimes in real life, academics are people who go to parties specifically to cluster in animated little conversational groups where they can drop references to Hegel and Kant and Nietzsche to their hearts’ desire. At any rate, those are the types of academics who populate After the Hunt, Luca Guadagnino ’s cartoonishly solemn drama, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival. An early scene, a party at the home of an up-for-tenure Yale professor played by Julia Roberts , is filled with that kind of thinky-talky dialogue. As you watch, you might think, as I did, that surely these people can’t go through the whole movie talking like this, in spiraling loops of jibber-jabber concerning the nature of free will, the role of individual morality within societal structu

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