Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield have responded to criticism of their new psychological thriller After the Hunt, calling accusations that the film is anti-feminist "false".
Debuting at the Venice Film Festival back in August, the psychological thriller, directed by Luca Guadagnino, stars Julia Roberts as a professor who "finds herself at a personal and professional crossroads when a star pupil (Edebiri) levels an accusation against one of her colleagues (Garfield)".
Asked during a press conference at the Venice festival if the #MeToo-themed drama undermined feminist beliefs, Roberts said (via The Guardian): "There’s a lot of old arguments that get rejuvenated in this movie in a way that does create conversation."
Touching on that question and speaking exclusively to Digital Spy ahead of its UK cinema release on 17 October, Edebiri and Garfield opened up about how they felt about the movie being labelled anti-feminist.
Asked if she felt the film was more about the feminist generational gap between Alma (Roberts) and Maggie (Edebiri), Edebiri said: "I think it's interesting to me because it makes me think of the way that all of our bodies are political bodies in every moment, but also they are real human bodies that have soft squishy souls underneath."
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She continued: "I think that some of the hardest parts of existing are trying to reconcile those two things at the same time."
"I think there is this feminist generation gap," Edebiri explained. "But also it's these two women who are having a fundamental misunderstanding and it's getting larger and more out of control and more distant from each other and becoming this quasi-political thing. I think underneath it, it really is a human thing that's happening between them."
Garfield added: "When it was brought up in that press conference, I think it was a journalist that maybe hadn't seen the film.
"I think it was someone going, 'Hey, people are saying this is anti-feminist' and like, 'Who? Who's saying that?' For me, it brings up a more interesting thing which is how do we identify when we are being baited, and how do we identify when we are being kept at odds.
"I think it might have been a false kind of divisiveness that is going to be clicky rather than lucrative."
Edebiri concluded: "It's the fight that I think we all have to wade into also as members of the media writ large. How do we also train our brains to think actual thoughts and reactions?"
After the Hunt is released in UK cinemas on 17 October.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.
Isabella is a freelance journalist who has written on young women's issues, entertainment, TV and film, South Asian representation, mental health, dating and so much more. She has bylines in ELLE, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Prima, Digital Spy, Women's Health, and Harper's Bazaar, and was named 30 Under 30 by MediaWeek, PPA and We Are The City. She was also shortlisted for Workplace Hero at the Investing In Ethnicity Awards and Hero of the Year at the European Diversity Awards. Follow Isabella on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
