“Cancel culture” is a minefield. And those who claim that it exists seem to define it in one way only: being erased from public and professional life without due process or any hope for a comeback. Even though many of those who lost their status (or got “cancelled”) in recent years have merely faced the consequences of their proven actions, the originators of the saying managed to pull a great trick: these days, we are all using the term unironically somehow (whether we agree with cancel culture’s existence or not), and thus, inadvertently doing the bidding for the narrative.

Why is this intro into the murkiness of “cancel culture” necessary in order to talk about Luca Guadagnino’s sharp and well-calibrated campus psychodrama “After the Hunt,” you might rightfully ask. That’s because – at least at first glance – those are the treacherous waters that Guadagnino and first-time screenwriter Nora Garrett set out to navigate. Has the “consequence culture” (a more accurate name for our current moment) gone too far? Are we being a tad unfair? And yet, these questions only scratch the tip of the iceberg in Guadagnino’s handsomely provocative thriller, about a modern-day (and fictional) sexual assault case in the mahogany-heavy bowels of an Ivy League school.

Beyond that façade, there is thankfully more – a great deal more. What “After the Hunt” really pursues over the course of its patient two-hours-and-change is something several levels deeper, akin to John Patrick Shanley’s pre-#MeToo masterpiece, “Doubt.” First a stage-play in 2004, then a searing 2008 movie that pits two greats – Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman – against each other in a Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal, “Doubt” was about the eponymous concept that goes hand-in-hand with faith, like the other side of the same coin. Human beings are complex; everyone holds multiple truths with competing motivations and priorities, and you can’t really reach the truth by simply asserting your certainty.

Those ideas that favour healthy skepticism over blind faith are very much at the heart of “After the Hunt” as well, as Garrett’s thoughtful (if imperfect) script reveals the depths of its trio of main characters in drips. But unlike in “Doubt,” the question of whether or not the aforementioned assault happened takes a backseat in due course. Again, this film primarily explores individual and social complexities, as well as how the truth can be interpreted and misinterpreted through the eyes of the pursuer.

Here, the primary player is Julia Roberts’ Alma Imhoff, a Yale philosophy professor on the cusp of receiving her well-earned tenure. The film kicks off with Alma’s morning routine, set against the backdrop of muffled sounds and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ ticktock-ing score, which feels like a bomb is about to detonate. We meet the other players soon enough – there is Ayo Edebiri’s PhD candidate Maggie Price, an evident protégé of Alma – and Andrew Garfield’s loose-limbed Hank Gibson, Alma’s close department friend. And if their suggestive closeness is any indication, they have occasionally been a bit more than friends.

That well-teased bomb goes off after an ultra-chic yet cozy party at the home of Alma and her psychiatrist husband, Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg), where both Hank and Maggie are among the guests. Being a filmmaker of details that sing to the five senses, Guadagnino takes his time to romanticize this academic environment occupied by the intelligentsia.

It is on the heels of this environment that a shivering Maggie shows up at Alma’s doorstep in tears, with the accusation that Hank has assaulted her. After Alma’s meeting with the Dean (a testimony we don’t quite witness), Hank loses his job and prospects, leaving Alma increasingly rattled. On the one hand, there is his desperate friend going off the deep end (Garfield is terrific exploring this new territory as an actor) and insisting upon his innocence. On the other hand, there is the optics of doing the right thing that might affect her tenure.

Without spoiling its surprises, Garrett’s script is smart to follow in the footsteps of classic thrillers and embellish each character (not just Hank, but the women too) with details that point to their own unreliability as narrators. In Maggie’s case, she might not be the ace student we assumed her to be. And in Alma’s case, well … she comes with a substance abuse problem, and a past episode that might have contributed to her biases. Guadagnino times these plot turns perfectly, blurring every picture we once took for granted as truth. “After the Hunt” exposes a fascinating battle of generations between Alma and Maggie as these knotty maneuvers settle. To Alma, Maggie and her Gen-Z counterparts walked into the comforts of their time through the work of older women like herself.

Among the film’s many rewards is a truly breathtaking Roberts, who – in a sleek enviabe academia-chic wardrobe of classic suits and lux cashmeres – gives a brand-new purpose to her dearly missed piercing gaze, incomparable laugh, and angular features as the ever-multifaceted Alma. “After the Hunt,” with a brilliant epilogue, isn’t quite about whether Hank is guilty, or about challenging or discrediting all the good that the #MeToo movement has achieved so far. Instead, it’s a movie that pushes us to be better, deeper thinkers and assessors.