Kinds of Kindness: Film Review
Those expecting a film like The Favourite and Poor Things will be sorely disappointed with Kinds of Kindness. It may star Emma Stone but this film sees Yorgos Lanthimos go back to the old school, as it is more similar to his earlier work Dogtooth and The Lobster.
Kinds of Kindness tells three stories using the same set of actors as different characters. Lanthimos reunites with his regular collaborators Stone, Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley and adds new players to the roster with Jesse Plemons, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie and Joe Alwyn.
The first chapter stars Plemons as Robert, a man whose life is run by his boss Raymond (Dafoe). Raymond dictates everything, right down to what he eats, and Robert obeys all instructions. However, his whole world falls apart when he refuses to kill a man at Raymond’s behest.
The second instalment stars Plemons as Daniel, who becomes convinced that his wife Liz (Stone) is no longer his wife and cruelly tests her loyalty. In the third, the duo play Andrew and Emily, who work for a cult run by Omi (Dafoe) and Aka (Chau). They are trying to track down a woman who can bring the dead back to life.
Given that it’s a Lanthimos film, you know it’s going to be effing weird, but it’s more so than I expected. You witness characters doing some dark, twisted, freaky, messed-up stuff. At times, I couldn’t help but wonder if it was simply for shock value and to make us feel uncomfortable. I probably laughed more out of shock than something genuinely funny. I found it hard to decipher what the film was trying to say because I was so caught up in all the provocative scenes happening on the surface.
The first story is the strongest and could have been a film on its own. It had all the ingredients for a full feature and I was actually quite disappointed when it ended because I wanted more. The third one is the strongest as a short – it had a beginning, middle and end, I enjoyed the cult vibes and I actually cared about Emily. I didn’t dislike the second one but it didn’t feel as fully formed or satisfying as the others.
The stars throw themselves fully into the madness but they are held back by the script, which was co-written by Lanthimos and his earlier collaborator Efthimis Filippou (instead of The Favourite and Poor Things scribe Tony McNamara). The dialogue is stilted, odd and unrealistic and I couldn’t tell if this was a deliberate move to make us feel off-kilter.
Some people may also be put off by how long the film is overall (2 hours 44 minutes) and how slow it can feel at times. The score particularly got under my skin. The spare but harsh piano music made it feel on edge as it was not pleasant to listen to (which I’m sure was Lanthimos’s intention).
It would be a stretch to say I enjoyed Kinds of Kindness. I didn’t dislike it and I was intrigued by the ideas but I would never watch it again.
In cinemas from Friday 28th June. On Disney+ from 30th August