Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Writer: Yorgos Lanthimos, Efthymis Filippou
Stars: Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley
Synopsis: A man seeks to break free from his predetermined path, a cop questions his wife’s demeanor after her return from a supposed drowning, and a woman searches for an extraordinary individual prophesied to become a renowned spiritual guide.
Yorgos Lanthimos is the director that today’s audiences point to when seeking out bizarre stories with a unique personality and feel. With each feature he offers, people seem to increase their praise and admiration for the Greek filmmaker, especially after the release of the Golden Lion-winning Poor Things, which put him under a new spotlight that nobody saw coming. I have grown to like him more throughout the years, as I deem his works pre-his collaborations with Tony McNamara to be patience testers lacking humanity. The exception is 2015’s The Lobster, where Lanthimos made a film about society’s pressure on people to conform to normative relationships. The characters felt distanced as usual, yet there was a more emotional touch to them that felt quite gripping.
McNamara reigned in Yorgos Lanthimos’ absurdist ideas into truly poignant, humanistic concepts to the same degree as they are weird. This division makes the Greek filmmaker the incredible talent that he is. The Favourite and Poor Things have a sense of control and balance between McNamara and Lanthimos; the screenwriter and director came together to unite styles and visions while maintaining each’s personalities. These works are not bogged down by a necessity to disturb the viewer to the point of disgust or loathing. They provoke thought more so than elicit this kind of reaction. Lanthimos’ follow-up to his ‘Frankenstein’ meets Belle de Jour story, Kinds of Kindness, is the complete opposite of what I have described, going back to his unrestrained concepts and unfiltered canvas that diminishes the effects his themes have.
Co-written by Yorgos Lanthimos and his past collaborator Efthymis Filippou (Dogtooth, Killing of a Scared Deer), Kinds of Kindness is a triptych about the lengths people go through to enrich their human connections. The film tells three stories that interlace thematically yet narratively do not come close to being similar. The only detail that ties them is the appearance of a man named R. M. F. (Yorgos Stefanakos) – a character treated as a running gag, getting less funny by the hour. Jesse Plemons plays the lead role in all three of them, with the rest of the cast (Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, and Hong Chau) playing second and third fiddle in this machiavellian orchestra of shock and no awe.
The first story, “The Death of R. M. F.”, centers around a businessman, Robert Fletcher (Plemons), who lives his life the way his boss and lover, Raymond (Dafoe), intends him to. The man has no choice; he must follow the demands of the puppeteer moving his strings, whether it is his dietary habits, what books to read, or the time and date he has intercourse with his partner, Sarah (Chau). The manipulation behind this relationship is more than evident, as we see Robert being forced to shape his life around the likes of a more powerful person. However, Lanthimos wants to demonstrate that this behavior is an act of love, albeit exaggerated to fit the satiric tone.
He talks about how people sometimes go to great lengths for this kind of devotion and attention, or, in its most minuscule description, “the crazy things people do for love.” This theme is explored in all three stories. Still, this first one is the most well-observed and fascinating because it focuses on the desperation and hopelessness people often feel when a powerful, passionate relationship collapses. In real life, these scenarios do not tend to play in this manner, where violence, self-harm, and denigration are most apparent. But there is a sense of trying to regain what is lost; we usually don’t appreciate things until they are gone. And Lanthimos, in his usual, unconventional ways, explores that mentality.
The second story, “R. M. F. is Flying,” is a slight reworking of Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession–in my books, one of the best films of all time. In addition, you can also tie Andrew Semans’ Resurrection with this chapter of Kinds of Kindness, where love and death are intertwined with manipulation and devotion. Both films mingle love and death with manipulation and devotion as a couple tries to forge the best version of themselves through abuse and humiliation. Lanthimos and Filippou only manage to scratch the surface of the potential lingering around this story. A police officer, Daniel (Plemons), is holding onto that last brink of hope that his wife, Liz (Stone), will return after her expedition team gets lost at sea.
Months have passed, and Daniel’s mental state is more than fractured. One day, he receives a call that Liz has been found and relocated to the nearest hospital for medical evaluation. Daniel should be ecstatic, totally bewildered that his partner is now back. However, his emotions sour quickly after noticing something strange in Liz’s behavior. Liz eats chocolate and smokes cigarettes, which she didn’t do before. Daniel believes that the person in his house is not Liz. She might be an imposter or a clone sent from another place, à la Invasion of the Body Snatchers. So, he questions her identity and subjects Liz to a series of acts to prove her love. It begins with an interesting premise yet rapidly transitions to an array of cheap shock and humorless gags rather than thematic exploration.
This is where Kinds of Kindness started to lose me and annoy me to the point of being exhausted by Yorgos’ childish behavior. He has done some absurd and crazy things in his features involving sex and violence. Most of the time, they add something to the narrative or atmosphere. You can take all those scenes out of the movie, and it leaves plenty of room to curate a broader analysis. This insistence on having those moments feels like a baby’s first attempt at shock. Indulgence and a need to create disquieting imagery are all he has in mind, and the end credit sequence of his chapter confirms such immaturity.
The third (and final) story, “R. M. F. Eats a Sandwich”, is about two members of a sex cult, Emily (Stone) and Andrew (Plemons), and their journey to find an extraordinary person who might (or might not be) the savior of the world. This messiah-like figure can bring people back from the dead. The woman they are searching for appears in Emily’s dreams. The stupor is a recurring, ineffective motif in the film that speaks about the escapist feelings dreams bring and, as a form of nihilism to the characters, the inescapability of their troubled, puzzled lives. Without much explanation, a stranger recognizes Emily and Andrew and provides them with a tip about the whereabouts of this mysterious woman.
The events leading up to the “is she or is she not” reveal of the woman in Emily’s dreams as a messiah are all done in a scattered, incredibly messy manner. Each plot strand makes little to zero sense and seems crammed together to make it fit one way or another. Coherence is off the table in this third story. Lanthimos and Filippou struggle to make room for each character without the exercise becoming more laborious. There is one curious narrative thread here between Emily and the family she left behind as a means to escape a toxic relationship for one that is masquerading as healthy. The intrigue is lost when Lanthimos adds an unnecessary scene of assault, removing the little spark of brilliance the chapter had.
Like all of Yorgos Lanthimos’ works, Kinds of Kindness is ambitious and, in many ways, creative. There is a fascination with big studios giving directors like Yorgos money to do these odd creations that will not attract many viewers outside of those who know of his work. And somehow, his latest one might motivate audiences to seek out his filmography if they haven’t already. Giving complete freedom to a filmmaker known for ingenious provocation has plenty of consequences. What is missing here is the blend of the sadistic and absurd with the humanistic and sensitive, which Filippou does not know how to construct through Yorgos’ mad ideas.
That is why Tony McNamara is a brilliant writer. He holds the Greek filmmaker back from his pretentious and self-gratifying excess, which allows Lanthimos’ ideas, concepts, and themes to flourish while maintaining his personality. When working with Filippou, he concocts fascinating projects riddled with unnecessary, goading baggage. Kinds of Kindness is not a showcase of his abilities but a project demonstrating his worst, unfiltered tendencies.
