Kinds Of Kindness review: Yorgos Lanthimos' anthology is shocking, hilarious, heartbreaking and brilliant

When I first had the opportunity to watch dog tooth in 2010, I immediately recognized writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos as a filmmaker of fascinating sensitivity and style, and vowed to keep an eye on his work in the years to come… but I never got the slightest idea that he would find what could be called “mainstream” success. And yet this is exactly what has happened over the past 14 years. His 2015 film Lobster and 2017 The killing of a sacred deer saw him begin collaborating with notable Hollywood stars like Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Nicole Kidman, and he is now widely recognized as the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind the 2018 film. The favourite and 2023 Poor things.

Kinds of Kindness

Release date: June 21, 2024
Directed by: Yorgos Lanthimos
Written by: Yorgos Lanthimos & Efthimis Filippou
With : Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, Margaret Qualley, Mamoudou Athie and Joe Alwyn
Rating: R for strong/disturbing violent content, strong sexual content, full nudity and language
Duration: 164 minutes

Part of what makes The favourite And Poor things What’s so interesting about Lanthimos’ filmography is that there is a complex aesthetic associated with the director’s surreal approach to story, characters, and dialogue. The protagonists and antagonists are strange, but they also live strange and alien existences (the fantasy world of the latter obviously being a bit stranger and alien than that of 18th-century Britain in the former). These intensified environments arguably made Lanthimos’ authorial voice more acceptable – but with Kinds of Kindnesshe’s back to his bread and butter, and it’s a dark, mind-numbing pleasure that seems designed to divide in the best way.

An anthology that forgoes a wraparound story, the film is a triptych of shorts featuring a communal ensemble, the main thread between them being bizarre relationships emphasizing control and obedience. Each is introduced by a title relating to a mysterious and silent character named RMF (Yorgos Stefanakos), who has small but important roles to play.

“The Death of RMF” centers on a man named Robert Fletcher (Jesse Plemons), who has a deal with a man named Raymond (Willem Dafoe) to have his entire life dictated and scheduled – but he is conflicted when asks him to get involved. an extreme, albeit planned, crime. In “RMF Is Flying,” a police officer (Plemons) begins to spiral emotionally when his wife (Emma Stone) mysteriously disappears at sea, but when she returns, he’s not sure she’s who she says she is. And finally, in “RMF Eats A Sandwich”, two agents (Stone, Plemons) are sent by a cult to follow leads in an attempt to find a woman who they are told has the ability to bring the dead back to life. life.

It oxymoronically balances directness and subtlety in such a way that you’re constantly surprised and working to cope with whatever the job throws at you. An eerie valley atmosphere floats through this nearly three-hour feature film as a familiar world collides with extreme, alien behavior, and immerses you in the strangeness in such a way that it inspires both laughter and deep reflection on what Yorgos Lanthimos and his colleagues. -the writer Efthimis Filippou tries to say with the trio of stories.

Each segment of Kinds Of Kindness builds like a puzzle, and it’s crazy to see the full picture come together.

From dog toothlanguage exploration for Poor things examining sexual liberation, Yorgos Lanthimos’ works take eccentric angles on fascinating areas of life and are part of what makes Kinds of Kindness the satisfaction of putting together what he’s trying to say is so compelling – because nothing in the film is flippant or stupid. With each story, you slowly understand the rules of the world and marvel as the characters follow and break them (and suffer the consequences). And just when you think you have it all figured out, things take an unexpected left turn and you’re still left chewing on what you witnessed a week after your screening.

The nature of the film makes it a minefield of spoilers, as it’s really best to let each twist and turn in the segments lull you and let your jaw drop as they unfold, but to give a vague example, “RMF Is Flying” finds a way to blend heartbreak, a Capgras delusion, and canine society into an exceptionally strange stew that must be consumed to be understood.

Yorgos Lanthimos presents a clean but dirty world and never backs down from anything.

There is a particular type of directness that is present in all of Yorgos Lanthimos’ work, with characters taking neutral tones even when making outlandish assertions or demands, and this voice is unfiltered in Kinds of Kindness. If that’s not a sensitivity you can engage with, you’ll spend 164 long and uncomfortable minutes, but moviegoers who can tune into its frequency will be dazzled. In one breath, the film takes you from a laugh-worthy celebratory dance in a parking lot to a shocking and deadly tragedy, and it leaves you stunned in the best way – with aesthetic consistency throughout accentuating sharp tonal shifts .

As unexpected developments continue to occur, Lanthimos makes no effort to “protect” the audience: this is the world he designed, and you are going to watch it. There’s a certain rawness to the way the characters behave, and it would be a betrayal of that voice to shy away from sex and instances of violence. The experience oscillates between shocking, hilarious, and deeply moving, and it’s beautifully daring.

Kinds Of Kindness has a tonal consistency across its chapters, but it’s great to see the range demonstrated by the film’s stars.

Obviously nothing is harmed by Kinds of Kindness employing some of the best actors currently working today. Although there are commonalities between the three stories in terms of aesthetic and tone, all of the performers can show different colors in each of their roles, and the way they stand out is a credit to their skills. Following what can be described as one of the best performances of the 21st century in Poor thingsEmma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos once again prove to be a perfect collaboration, the actress shines in “RMF Eats A Sandwich” – and Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley in particular stand out in their various supporting roles.

Continuing a 2024 streak that started with Alex Garland Civil war, it is Jesse Plemons who emerges as the MVP of the work, however, after the lost and confused Robert in “The Death Of RMF”, the spiraling Daniel “RMF Is Flying” or the devout Andrew in “RMF Eats A Sandwich.” Although the characters are not individually very different, Plemons provides each with a unique energy that sets them apart even as the stories unfold one after the other.

Arriving at a fascinating moment in Yorgos Lanthimos’ career. Kinds of Kindness will be a litmus test for some moviegoers as they discover where they stand in terms of their appreciation for the writer/director. This is certainly not a film for neophytes when it comes to Lanthimos’ work. But on the other hand, those who already know and love his work will be deeply satisfied by this epic and bizarre celebration.