Kinds of Kindness is the second film in a year for Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos, following last year’s Oscar-winning smash Poor Things. But where that fanciful Frankenstein riff ultimately found hopefulness in its story of sexual and intellectual awakening, Kinds of Kindness is like the Yorgos of old: bizarre, cynical, and finding humor in societal rot and human degradation. Fans of his films such as Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer will find more to appreciate with Kinds of Kindness than they might, say, The Favourite, which like Poor Things was designed to be mainstream.
First of all, Kinds of Kindness is a triptych, a rarely-used form of storytelling. An anthology of three disconnected stories with resonating themes, the film features an ensemble of Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, and more playing different characters in each. The first story finds Plemons as a man whose job is to perform whatever extreme task assigned to him by Dafoe, no matter how harmful. The second again finds the reliable Plemons as a cop and devoted husband who thinks that his wife, played by Stone, is a duplicate now that she’s returned home from being lost on a deserted island. The third and most plodding story finds Plemons and Stone as part of a sex cult where they must find a deity with a special power.
Whether we’re talking about twisted Lanthimos or hopeful Lanthimos, he excels in depicting incredible worlds that are like snowglobe versions of our own. In Kinds of Kindness, kindness isn’t really kindness at all. Or it’s kindness in the form of humiliation, inhumanity, and submissiveness. There’s lots of sex, weird dance riffs especially by Stone, and wildly over-the-top performances to match the bizarro aesthetic that Lanthimos has established. A gross-out theme echoes with fried “finger” foods, date rape, vomit, and vehicular homicide as Lanthimos constantly makes you want to shield your eyes.
Stone, who has earned both an Oscar nomination and an Oscar win for her work with Lanthimos, has learned how to fit into his surreal creations expertly. But it’s Plemons who is the real standout, taking center stage in all three tales. The rare actor who can evoke with a single expression our deepest empathy and condemnation, Plemons could join Stone as one of Lanthimos’ creative muses.
Kinds of Kindness explores with a dark sense of humor the power dynamics that control our lives, with a nod to living a life with a bit more chaos. Anthologies can be exhausting, pretentious Oscar-bait, though, and at nearly 3-hours in length, Kinds of Kindness can be a tough grind, but it’s ultimately a worthwhile experience.
Searchlight Pictures opens Kinds of Kindness in theaters on June 28th.
