Review: Kinds Of Kindness

Image courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

Yorgos Lanthimos follows his acclaimed and comparatively audience friendly "Poor Things" with another of his bleak and weird provocations. This is not necessarily a bad thing as his breakout film, "Dogtooth," was a film of this sort and worked wonders. Another example would be "The Killing of a Sacred Deer," which tried too hard to be a poke in the eye to viewers and saw diminishing returns.

His latest, "Kinds of Kindness," falls somewhere in between on the scale of success as a Lanthimos provocation. It's a triptych of stories all involving the same actors playing different characters and featuring narratives that aren't easily explainable. The first is by far the best and most intriguing. The second scenario works for about half the time before taking somewhat of a nosedive during its second half. The third story never quite gels.

Lanthimos is smart to start with his best material. In the first story, "The Death of R.F.M.," Jesse Plemons is a corporate drone whose every move is seemingly controlled by his mysterious and nefarious boss, Raymond (Willem Dafoe). And that's no exaggeration - Raymond tells him what he can eat, what he's supposed to read, whether he's allowed to have children, when he's allowed to have sex with his wife (Hong Chau), and insists that he take part in bizarre scenarios, most notably one in which he must drive his car into other passing cars, injuring their drivers.

There's no real explanation as to why Plemons' character has agreed to this setup or for how long it's been going on, though we suspect for quite some time. We learn that Raymond chose his wife, provided his house for him, and occasionally gives him odd gifts, such as a tennis racquet smashed by John McEnroe. When Robert Fletcher (Plemons) finally rebels, he is cut off completely. His wife disappears and Raymond won't talk to him, despite his apologies and pleas to be brought back into the fold.

By the way, many of the characters have names that could have the complete initials "R.M.F," which pop up in each of the segments' titles. In the second one, a cop played by Plemons has been awaiting the return of his wife (Emma Stone), who went missing on a scientific expedition of some sort. When she finally reappears, there's an awkwardly funny scene in which the couple watch themselves engaging in sex in a video along with another couple (Mamoudou Athie and Margaret Qualley). 

But then things take a turn for the strange. Plemons' character increasingly believes that the woman who has returned to him is not his wife, which further alienates him from his friends, co-workers, and father in law (Dafoe). To punish this woman whom he believes to be an intruder, he increasingly asks her to take part in sadistic rituals to please him. Things get pretty grim.

In the third story, Plemons and Stone are working for a cult (run by Dafoe and Chau) that is trying to reverse death and believe that there's a young woman (Qualley, this time playing twins) who can assist them in this quest. Stone gets pushed out of the group after she is sexually assaulted by an ex (Joe Alwyn) and decides to track the young woman down by herself.

As I'd mentioned, the first scenario in "Kinds of Kindness" was strange in a gripping way and almost felt as if it operated on dream logic, much like you'd expect in a David Lynch film. It doesn't exactly make sense from the standpoint of actual human behavior, but it instinctively feels right.

The second scenario is intriguing up until the point at which Plemons' character begins forcing Stone's character to do some pretty grisly things to herself. At that point, it starts to falter. And the final story never quite catches fire. 

Lanthimos is an interesting filmmaker with a distinctive style who has produced at least one great ("Poor Things") and several very good ("The Favourite" and "Dogtooth") films. He also occasionally gets too hung up on pushing buttons ("The Killing of a Sacred Deer") and his latest feels as if it marries his better instincts (in the mysterious first segment) to his worst ones (the second half of the second story and, at times, during the final scenario). 

The result is a disjointed movie that is fascinating in spurts, a little too long (two hours and forty minutes), and frustratingly uneven. There are definitely things to recommend here, but this ultimately won't be remembered as one of the director's better works.