Overview

• The psychological drama from director Luca Guadagnino held its North American premiere at the New York Film Festival ahead of an Oct. 10 theatrical release.
• Julia Roberts stars as Alma, a professor drawn into a campus sexual-assault allegation that involves a colleague and a graduate student played by Ayo Edebiri.
• The review singles out Roberts’s restrained, brittle turn and Edebiri’s effective portrayal of college-age anxiety.
• The film centers on ambiguity and institutional self-preservation rather than resolving the accusation at its core.
• The critic deems the movie compelling yet thematically familiar, noting a 139-minute runtime and an R rating for language and sexual content.