After harsh festival reviews, is Julia Roberts still in the Oscar hunt?

“Not everything is supposed to make you comfortable.”

The line makes for a provocative punctuation mark to the trailer for Luca Guadagnino‘s After the Hunt, but it could also serve as a warning for viewers sitting down for the latest film starring America’s sweetheart Julia Roberts.

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The #MeToo-tinged psychodrama about the aftermath of allegations leveled by a Yale Ph.D. student (The Bear‘s Ayo Edibiri) against a professor (Andrew Garfield) places both Roberts’ Alma Imhoff and the audience in the uncomfortable position right at the center of it. Does she back up her student, who came to her in a moment of need, or support her friend, who claims that he’s been set-up after exposing the young woman’s plagiarism?

It’s a compelling premise — designed to engage directly with one of the moment’s thorniest subjects—for a film stocked with movie stars, beloved character actors, and directed by one of the most in-demand filmmakers currently working.

And critics don’t seem to like it that much.

Fresh off of its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, After the Hunt, which was expected to be a serious Oscar contender and, at the very least, a vehicle for Roberts’ fourth Oscar nomination, is close to flunking out with critics. With only 31 reviews logged on Rotten Tomatoes (which only scores assessments on a binary of positive or negative), the film currently boasts a 52 percent rating, while its Metacritic score (which takes more nuance into account) isn’t faring much better at 54.

And Gold Derby users have taken notice. In the days since the premiere, both Roberts’ ranking in Best Actress and the film’s in Best Picture have fallen double-digit percentage points.

Best Actress

Contender

Odds

Jessie Buckley

Hamnet

88.2%

Cynthia Erivo

Wicked: For Good

72.8%

Renate Reinsve

Sentimental Value

72.0%

Rose Byrne

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

71.3%

Emma Stone

Bugonia

60.8%

Julia Roberts

After the Hunt

55.4%

Jennifer Lawrence

Die, My Love

24.6%

So what went wrong?

It goes back to that line from the trailer. Nothing in the design of After the Hunt is supposed to make the audience comfortable. All of the characters are flawed, and most have something to hide. It’s not necessarily a spoiler to say that the film doesn’t offer a clean resolution, but After the Hunt is better off for avoiding a pat resolution. However, the lengths to which the film goes with its plot and characterization to avoid leading viewers down a didactic path seems to be leaving the few who have actually seen it somewhat cold.

But, again, that could be by design. Throughout After the Hunt, characters comment on how little they know about Alma, and Roberts’ performance reflects that. She is closed off, laser focused on achieving her goal of tenure, and unwilling to offer up anything emotionally that could get in the way of that. It’s an impressive bit of acting, especially from a star whose persona is so luminous. (Roberts does get one of her signature whooping laughs in, however. You have to give the people what they want.) Alma is about as far from Erin Brockovich as one could get, which makes her interesting as a role for Roberts, but offers so little for the audience to hook onto that she can feel unknowable and, at worse, vacuous.

A more thorough assessment of how reactions to After the Hunt affect Roberts’ odds in Best Actress will have to wait until the public gets a chance to see it in October, but even if the movie’s reviews don’t improve, they may not be enough to scuttle the campaign.

Best Actor and Best Actress candidates have survived divided critical responses, the most recent example being Brendan Fraser’s redemptive win for The Whale (64 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). In Actress, you have to go back to Meryl Streep‘s most recent win for The Iron Lady in 2011 (51 percent), but the precedents are there.

Then again, the Tomatometer is only a measure of consensus. A movie honestly engaging with allegations of sexual assault probably shouldn’t be universally beloved. That’s the nature of the issue. Whether voters can get past a difficult movie to vote for the performance at the heart of it will likely come down to how comfortable they are being uncomfortable.

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