The Hunt is a gripping and moving drama about child abuse, human stupidity, and the psychodynamics of small towns. A man named Lucas who works in a kindergarten is falsely accused of sexually abusing a child at the kindergarten (the daughter of his life-long best friend).  The kindergarten director overreacts to an ambiguous utterance from the girl, and the wheels are set in motion to destroy Lucas’ life, as she and social services “confirm” everything in their own minds by watching the little girl nod to a series of outrageously leading questions, and then proceed to incite total panic among the other parents, a panic that quickly spreads to the rest of the small, rural community and engenders a kind of mass insanity.

The film features very fine writing and direction that skillfully crafts and blends dialog, narrative structure, character development, and idea development to create a story that is captivating from beginning to end, and is interesting and meaningful on multiple levels. Many individual story elements stand out quite memorably – to mention just a few examples: the subtle series of events (beautifully plotted) that leads the little girl to make her fateful remark; the fantastic portrayal of how the adults project their own ungovernable fears onto the children and wind up implanting false memories of abuse; the amazing character of Lucas’ brave and loyal son, who stands courageously against all his father’s life-long friends who have abandoned him without ever hearing his side of the story; the slow disintegration of Lucas, capturing not only his pain but also the quiet dignity of the man; and last but not least the sense of isolation and vulnerability in small towns, where everybody thinks too much about everybody else, and collective irrationality constantly festers. I should also add that the casting and performances are uniformly excellent.

It might seem from my description that The Hunt is a bit of a downer. But perhaps the best measure of its quality is that despite its serious and grim subject matter it is not depressing – sad, yes, but also interesting and rewarding. I highly recommend The Hunt.