'Kinds of Kindness' (2024)

Alternatively: "Yorgos Lanthimos: The Return of Yorgos Lanthimos' Revenge - The Lanthimosing."

I mentioned in a past review (Challengers, specifically) that my local cinema doesn’t always get all the new films, and so I’m forced to wait until they’re out on VOD or streaming before I can actually see them. Kinds of Kindness was one of these films.

I dodged reviews, plot details, pretty much everything about this movie until I got the chance to see it, but there was one little Rotten Tomatoes excerpt that managed to creep its way into my mind. The author/publication of the corresponding review sadly escapes me, but the paraphrased gist of the excerpt was “Yorgos Lanthimos made Kinds of Kindness solely to prove that he can do literally whatever he wants and we’ll still heap praise on him just because it’s Lanthimos.”

That was the one and only thing on my mind as I queued Kinds of Kindness up on Disney Plus. And now, having seen it, I can’t say I agree with that sentiment, but I also don’t entirely disagree with it. I say this because evaluating Kinds of Kindness as a narrative film yields less than evaluating it as a conduit of Lanthimos’ undiluted auteur stylings (which of course are not falsifiable by any reasonable stretch and therefore difficult to critique).

I would, however, also argue that the latter lens is borderline necessary to effectively parse Kinds of Kindness as a narrative feature in the first place, so regardless of how well you as a viewer gel with Lanthimos as an artist, the singularity of the relationship between his artistry and the more fundamental aspects of storytelling is pretty fascinating here.

Dishing out plot details will only make things confusing, but Kinds of Kindness is a triptych anthology starring Lanthimos’ Avengers (Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Mamoudou Athie, and others). One is about an employee trying to win over his former boss, one is about a policeman whose wife is rescued from a desert island, and one is about a woman’s search for a supernatural being that holds the key to making a cult welcome her back into their ranks.

There’s a very specific inescapability to Lanthimos that’s core to his artistry, and that core takes center stage with Kinds of Kindness. Whereas Poor Things was just as effective as a star vehicle for Emma Stone, Kinds of Kindness plays itself far more selfishly in terms of characterization and theme. But, per my third paragraph, those two things are handled with an intent and consciousness that speak about as loudly as either of those two things themselves. It’s no easy task to drink in that subtlety (let alone drinking it in consistently across the beefy 164-minute runtime), and even if you do, mileage will still, again, largely hinge on one’s affinity for Lanthimos being Lanthimos.

This aforementioned inescapability is most apparent in the performances. Kinds of Kindness is filled with actors who can steal a scene in their sleep, but the film’s mission statement calls for uncanny deadpan, with a united front of tantalizing unease taking precedence over flashes of individual, pronounced pathos (the latter of which isn’t entirely absent, but even so).

This homogenized delivery serves another purpose as well. The film’s dialogue is littered with unnatural and benign observations and pleasantries, but this deadpan attitude never really changes even when those aforementioned benigns are replaced with information that point towards particularly disturbing developments. Make no mistake; humanity’s most inconsequential levities being rendered in the exact same manner as its most baffling evils is no accident here.

This deadpan delivery is, of course, a staple of the Lanthimos motion picture, so really, one could and probably should conclude that the standout performance of Kinds of Kindness is Lanthimos’ leadership. The different shades of this leadership provided by the actors is a testament to the talent and teamwork on display, although the range and marathon-esque maintenance of these shades shown by Jesse Plemons does deserve special note.

The direction and cinematography (the latter of which was spearheaded by Robbie Ryan) is similar in this regard; it’s not particularly evocative in the traditional sense, but instead seeks to use its simplicity to direct one’s attention to the emotion that Lanthimos wants to convey (an emotion one could most aptly characterize as “gratifyingly salty”).

Which brings us to the big question: what is Kinds of Kindness about as a whole? What can we extrapolate from it on a more conscious level than what the animal of Lanthimos’ auteurship can provide?

Realistically speaking, there’s probably no answer to this question. Lanthimos said himself that the initials of R.M.F. (the lone man who connects the three stories in the film, played by Yorgos Stefanakos) do not stand for anything in particular, and are entirely meant to be interpreted however the audience wishes. I myself am partial to “Random Motherfucker,” though I can’t claim that as my own thought.

But I’m going to offer up an answer anyway. First, let’s recall “Sweet Dreams,” the timeless Eurythmics song that featured prominently in Kinds of Kindness’ marketing, and also in the film itself. “Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree? Everybody’s looking for something.”

Let’s next consider the central plights of the characters in these stories. Robert kicks us off by living nearly every aspect of his life at the behest of his boss Raymond, up to, until, and then including recreational murder. “Liz” comes along shortly after, hoping to win over her husband Daniel with mutilation and cannibalism. And then Emily goes to severe lengths in hopes of being welcomed back into a cult that kicked her out for a reason that’s reprehensible on every conceivable level.

That’s just the SparkNotes, of course, but a common theme emerges nevertheless; “anything for love,” with “love” in this case ranging from acceptance to pleasure to security and other such personal boons.

But, one need place just as much emphasis on “anything,” too. In order to get what you want, sometimes you need to be okay with accepting other things into your life as well, and a lot of those things might be pretty heinous. Kinds of Kindness, then, works as an exercise on what we’re willing to endure to get what we want, and the relationship we have with setting those terms and boundaries with respect to how you get what you want, or from whom.

It’s pretty objectively not okay, for instance, that Emily was kicked out of the cult the way she was. But Kinds of Kindness isn’t interested in objectivity, and especially not moral objectivity; the cult had terms, and Emily was forcibly put into a position that meant she could no longer adhere to those terms. The contract was broken. No exceptions.

Would it have been a nicer story if Emily regained her individuality outside of the cult? Yes, absolutely, but she’s making the choice to live by the cult’s terms, which gives her the pleasure she wants at the expense of a very, very conditional love. For us viewers, to honor Emily’s choice is a kind of kindness, just as the cult is also a kind of kindness, even if it’s one that we personally condemn. But everybody’s looking for something, and maybe Emily’s sweet dreams are made of this, so who am I to disagree?

I have no closing thoughts on Kinds of Kindness. I don’t think I need any. It’s streaming on Disney Plus if you want to give it a go yourself.