Julia Roberts makes you serious in Venice-with a metoo drama

Emma Stone has just been proclaimed the Queen of Venice-for her evil conspiracy drama “Bugonia” she can be kidnapped, tortured and shaved the head-the next Hollywood noble is already waiting and enchanting the masses. Julia Roberts is back. Her show for the photographers and on the red carpet is actually her personal premiere at the film festival. Before that, she was only visiting Venice for filming. Unfortunately, she would not have time for visits this time, she said in a good mood at the overcrowded press conference. “But the journey on the boat alone feels like a dream.”

The film develops in your luggage more like a slow nightmare. The drama of the Italian director Luca Guadagnino is called “After the Hunt”. Erotically charged encounters have become his specialty with works such as “Call Me by your name”, “Challengers” or “Queer” with Daniel Craig. But in the new drama there is an alleged Metoo case at the University of Yale in the center, sexual scenes quickly tip over to the uncomfortable, attacked.

After a party, a white lecturer (Andrew Garfield) is said to have raped a black, lesbian doctoral student (Ayo Edebiri, known with her role as a cook in the series “The Bear”), whose parents are also miserable donors from the elite school. He denies and suspects a revenge campaign because he was able to demonstrate her cheating during the doctoral thesis. It becomes increasingly complicated and confused because the student of all people has chosen her professor of philosophy and ethics (Julia Roberts) as a mentor and accomplice, who apparently also hides a dubious metoo case from her teenagers.

The film was already hotly debated after the first performances. Are women played out against each other in their credibility and the ongoing struggle of the feminists? Can you tell complex and academically demanding about racism and diversity, Cancel Culture and the identity theses of philosophers such as Foucault, Arendt and Adorno without the audience losing the thread or patience?

“I can’t imagine anything better than that they come out of the cinema and talk about it,” said Roberts, smiling her famous smile that could be printed on panorama postcards. “The art of conversation is just lost,” she fears. Spectators could decide for themselves whether they “prefer to drink martinis or lemonade” after the credits.

Roberts deliberately did not want to argue or go into detail on the stage in Venice. “To be rude, contradicting, is not in my nature,” she said almost maternal. Before that, she had already asked her colleagues to open the cans placed in front of them with water so that everyone could be better understood later. “This was how it went every day while filming,” joked Andrew Garfield. “Welcome to Julia Roberts’s microcosm.”

As good as in “After the Hunt”, Roberts was actually no longer in a leading role. Her Oscar for “Erin Brockovich” was 24 years ago, the nomination for “Pretty Woman” another ten years longer. In a good two years, she will celebrate her 60th birthday, difficult to imagine. In the end, unfortunately, she hardly agreed with cinema films, if usually took over mother rolls. Instead, she played in a few television series, had herself hired as an ambassador for luxury fashion and jewelry and was an activist for sustainable topics and human rights.

And together with her sister Lisa, she founded her own production company to have more participation and control in future projects. The name of your company was inspired by a Hindu symbol: “Red Om”. He also makes sense backwards. The husband of her three children is called Danny Moder.

After the early breakthrough in the 1990s with romantic comedies and modern classics such as “Notting Hill”, Roberts generally wanted to concentrate more on his own family and became more and more chartered. For this she now shows all her art in Venice and why she could also land well in the current Oscar race. For the role of a woman whose outstanding intellect is questioning her emotional world, lies and personal truths and brings false, she has had her hair almost trump blonde, the fingernails painted black and likes to wear white pants with black slippers. Her figure reads Thomas Mann, hears Miles Davis and has a stomach ulcer.

There is little to smile for the otherwise cheerful Roberts this time, their otherwise friendly eyes send icy looks towards their friends, colleagues and adversaries. In short: Julia Roberts can also switch to combat mode and bring serious, complex characters to life. “If there are any problems, it gets really juicy for an actress,” she says. “You like to get up for that in the morning.” Spoken like a true queen.