It should go without saying that Kinds of Kindness is a very, very weird movie. That should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with director Yorgos Lanthimos. After garnering mainstream success (and several Oscars) thanks to his last two films The Favourite and Poor Things, Lanthimos has decided to go back to his darker roots, re-teaming with both his Dogtooth co-writer Efthymis Filippou and his creative muse Emma Stone to craft Kinds of Kindness, an anthology about toxic forms of devotion that’s every bit as dark and absurd as old school Lanthimos, for better or worse.
Kinds of Kindness is divided into three stories that are mostly unconnected aside from the rotating cast of characters, all played by Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, and Mamoudou Athie. That, and a minor character named R.M.F. who appears in each one.
The first segment, titled “The Death of R.M.F.” follows Robert Fletcher (Plemons), an office worker completely devoted to his boss Raymond (Dafoe). Raymond controls Robert’s daily life to the most exact minutiae where he not only decides what he wears and what/where he eats, but even what days he’s allowed to have sex with his wife (Chau). Robert refuses Raymond for the first time after he orders him to get in a high-speed car accident, and soon afterward, Raymond’s life spirals out of control. This first story is easily the strongest of the trio, with Plemons and Dafoe wholeheartedly committing to Lanthimos’ comedic stylings, even when it delves into some seriously dark subject matter.
“Kinds of Kindness is tailor-made for the certified sickos that garnered his notoriety to begin with.”
The second segment, “R.M.F. Is Flying”, sees Plemons playing Daniel, a cop who is reeling from his wife Liz’s (Stone) disappearance at sea. When Liz is finally rescued, small changes in her personality convince Daniel to think she is not who she says she is and force him to prove her identity and her love for him through violent acts of self-harm. This second act starts off similarly comedic (there’s an awkward dinner scene early on that’s as shocking as it is hilarious), but the second half turns effectively horrifying when it comes to the relationship between Liz and Daniel.
Where things started to lose me was in the final segment, “R.M.F. Eats A Sandwich”. Easily the darkest of the three, this chapter centers on Emily (Stone), a member of a cult run by Omi (Dafoe) and Aka (Chau). Emily, alongside fellow cultist Andrew (Plemons) spends most of the chapter in search of a woman they believe has the ability to resurrect the dead; a task that she repeatedly attempts with increasing desperation after she is assaulted and subsequently banned by the cult, now being seen as “contaminated”.
With the entirety of Kinds of Kindness clocking in at 2 hours and 45 minutes, this third segment is where I felt it was really spinning its wheels, and the shocking moments actively hurt the story rather than enhance the point like the previous segments. Not even Emma Stone doing another ridiculous dance could save it for me.
Despite my varying feelings on the stories themselves, the whole film itself looks great courtesy of cinematographer (and frequent Lanthimos collaborator) Robbie Ryan and the ensemble cast is impressively game for whatever insane directions each of these stories take. Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone, in particular, show why they are two of the most dynamic actors working today. That being said, I’m disappointed that both Hong Chau and Mamoudou Athie were underused, even if they were great in the brief moments they appeared. I felt the same about Margaret Qualley for the first two parts, but thankfully a lot more to do in the third segment and knocks it out of the park.
Kinds of Kindness is the type of movie that perfectly exemplifies the term “your mileage will vary.” As someone who is very new to Lanthimos’ work but was aware of his style beforehand, it bummed me out that I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped. It’s a movie that’s knowingly cruel to its characters; the extent of that cruelty is where it’s going to lose people, no matter how funny it is.
Although, if you’re someone who loved Lanthimos’ earlier films like Dogtooth or The Killing of a Sacred Deer and thought he had gone somewhat soft recently, this can be seen as a return to form. Kinds of Kindness is tailor-made for the certified sickos that garnered his notoriety to begin with.
