David Farnor | On 01, Sep 2024

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau
Certificate: 18

Yorgos Lanthimos has never been for the faint of heart. While Kinds of Kindness might be less in-your-face than Poor Things, his quickly released follow-up is a distilled dose of his dark and disturbing take on human nature – one that’s frequently scathing, occasionally graphic and sometimes wickedly amusing.

The film is an anthology of three fables, which are loosely connected by a mysterious man with the initials RMF. In the first, we meet Robert (Jesse Plemons), whose life is directly in every detail by his precise boss, Raymond (Willem Dafoe), right down to what he eats, what he reads and when he sleeps with his wife (Hong Chau). When he’s asked to run over a man – RMF – with his car, his willingness to obey orders is truly put to the test. In the second, we meet Daniel (Jesse Plemons), whose scientist wife, Liz (Emma Stone), has gone missing while diving. When she reappears, he wonders whether she is really the same person. And in the third, we follow Emily (Emma Stone) and Andrew (Jesse Plemons), two members of a cult who are trying to find someone with the power to resurrect the dead.

They share the director’s distinct tone of clinical detachment and curious observation, as he reunites with screenwriter Efthimis Filippou, who worked on The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. The fragmented nature of the triptych means that this feels less rounded than those two, and some of the warmth and humour of Poor Things and The Favourite are also missed. The appeal is more of the puzzle-box variety, and Kinds of Kindness enjoys being cryptic in its approach to both plot and its titular human trait.

What Lanthimos unearths over the lengthy 2 hours and 45 minutes is how kindness is weaponised and exploited, returning to his obsession with dynamics of power and control. We see how the feeling of being prized can topple a relationship in favour of an abuser, how a co-dependent bond can lead to harm or a pained longing for something thought to be lost, and how belief and hope can be corrupted. It’s a bleak survey of trust, love and faith, with the closest thing to a positive moral being the suggestion of making do with what you have – and even that comes in the context of a society where humans are ruled by dogs.

While the film’s elusive and obtuse tone are a struggle, there’s much to enjoy in the cast’s performances. The ensemble, who play different characters in each story, bring nuances to the rich themes lying beneath the surface, whether it’s Hong Chau’s quiet resilience, Emma Stone’s disarming earnestness or Willem Dafoe’s stern manipulation. Jesse Plemons, in particular, is magnetic as he journeys from grief to supplication with the sense of a man whose thoughts and existence are perpetually unfinished. All the while, an alarm rings out from the piano-heavy soundtrack, reverberating across the unsettling tapestry. There’s meat to sink your teeth into here, but your appetite may vary.

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