After The Hunt original ending was much sadder, details revealed

Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt ultimately opts for ambiguity, but early drafts of the ending ended in a far bleaker, confessional coda that would have reshaped everything. Julia Roberts' Alma' story ends with her becoming the Dean of the University, after some tumultuous turns of events, including her confessing to her husband about her fabricating a s*xual assault case about a man she considers her lover, who later died of su*cide. It's an ending that holds a lot of weight, and ultimately shifts the atmosphere of the film. However, the original ending was much different, as screenwriter Nora Garrett confessed.

Speaking to IndieWire, Garrett talked about changing the ending as she said,

“So, when Luca first attached, he basically said, ‘OK, I love everything about this film except for the last 20 pages.' So, it was immediately right out in the open that he wanted the ending to shift. Partially, because when you think about the reality of how life works, Luca is very intentional and also very committed to truth and reality and verisimilitude.”

What was the original ending of After The Hunt?

In After The Hunt's original ending, the weight of Alma;'s confession lingers for more than what audiences saw in the film. Alma and Frederik don't reconcile, and instead part ways as a result of their shared history. She returns to Sweden and leaves Yale behind, her departure serving as a consequence of her past choices.

However, her journey back home does not give her the peace she thought of. She attempts to reconnect with the mother of the man she accused of assault, wanting closure, but it turns out futile. Instead, she finds herself in a candid conversation with her own parents, when her mother tells her "No one ever gets over anything." That stark, unflinching truth became the catalyst for Alma’s next step. Propelled by it, she returned to America, stepping into the public eye once more to testify in Maggie’s case against Hank, finally confronting the lingering shadows of past misdeeds.

Garrett further talked about the ending in the interview, where she said,

“The idea that someone like Alma, who had been searching her whole life for this, clawing her way towards this, making so many internal sacrifices for this thing, would give it up so easily, felt false to Luca. It felt like a very constructed character turn, as opposed to a holistic one. Looking at the world that we have … it’s really hard to let go of your identity, and it’s really hard to let go of everything that’s been bulwarking that identity, just because someone else tells you you have to. He felt like Alma was more of a fighter than that. And so, that’s how we began sort of reconstructing the ending of the film.”

After The Hunt also stars Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield, Michael Stuhlbarg and Chloë Sevigny. The film has received mixed reviews, with Roberts and Garfield's performances standing out.