The director of captivating absurdist films such as ‘The Lobster’ and ‘The Favourite’ and ‘Poor Things,’ Yorgos Lanthimos goes deeper into the absurdity with his latest film, the triptych ‘Kinds of Kindness,’ which opened to limited release worldwide before finding its way to Disney+. At 164 minutes, the anthology of three loosely related short films (connected mostly by theme) feature actors that the director has worked with in the past – Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn – as well as Jesse Plemons, Hong Chau, and Mamoudou Athie all playing different characters in each of the three segments.
In the first segment, “The Death of RMF,” Plemons plays a man whose life is controlled down to its most tiniest details by Willem Defoe’s eccentric wealthy corporate overlord-type. The relationship between Plemons and Defoe is romantic, though Plemons’ character is married to Hong Chau and Defoe is living with a woman (Qualley). When Plemons is unable to carry out a task that he was instructed to do, he is cut off from Defoe and he finds himself lost and directionless until he meets Emma Stone’s character, who seems strangely familiar.
“RMF is Flying” is the second segment where Plemons plays a policeman who is distracted by the loss of his wife (Emma Stone) who is missing out at sea. But when she is found and returns home, Plemons begins to suspect that the woman who looks like his wife is not his wife. As the policeman tries to keep his distance, the wife will do anything to try and convince him that she’s really her. Things take a very bloody turn as the policeman makes unbelievable demands.
The final piece, “RMF Eats a Sandwich” centers around Emma Stone’s character who is working for a cult, led by Willem Dafoe and Hong Chau. Stone, along with Plemons, goes around the city searching for a messiah-like figure but secretly, she takes trips to visit her home to leave gifts for her daughter. When she is spotted by her daughter and her husband (Joe Alwyn), one thing leads to another and she finds herself breaking the tenets of the cult just as she is about to come face-to-face with the messiah (Margaret Qualley).
All three stories are told with the signature style of Lanthimos, with the cinematography and musical score that is set to distort your experience of the story by highlighting the weirdness of each scene. The dialogue is more reminiscent with Lanthimos’ older work like ‘The Lobster’ and ‘Killing of the Sacred Deer’ as the film reunites him with his co-writer Efthimis Filippou, who has a gift for creating extremely stilted, awkward dialogue as evidenced by the movies aforementioned. In ‘Kinds of Kindness,’ the literal, non-nonsensical word and phrase choices are apparent, but the actors are able to deliver it with more emotion than in ‘The Lobster’ or ‘Killing of a Sacred Deer.’ But with all these cinematic elements working in conjunction, the film is intellectually demanding as one has to really peel off the layers of artifice to get at the meat of the films.
It’s the leaning into the formalist aesthetic that Yorgos Lanthimos is really an expert at and it makes his films so enjoyable because they come off as really unexpected and irreverent, which makes them really, really funny. It’s a deadpan humor that forces you to just laugh because otherwise you’d feel bad about yourself because what these movies have in common – the interconnected theme that weaves in and out of the three films – is the dangerous determination of the human spirit. In all three films, the main characters – Plemons in the first two movies, Stone in the final one – all are driven to the point of being blinded to anything else like logic, morals, dignity, rationality. There’s a passionate need that drives these characters forward and they come bulldozing into every moment and creates more havoc and chaos that creates a cynical and jaded look into modern human nature.
Lanthimos creates a satire with ‘Kinds of Kindness,’ and he is making fun of all of us with our unyielding loyalty to the things we hold dear: religion, idols, conspiracy theories. What makes it all work is that he never takes it too seriously but his actors manage to make it all feel so real without every losing the tonality of the film being a satire set in the absurdist mode.
I’ve been told, ‘Kinds of Kindness’ is Lanthimos’ English work that feels closest to his Greek work and I’m glad for a taste of it (as his earlier Greek films are hard to come by over streaming). I love his other works, though, with Poor Things being one of my favorite cinematic experiences last year. While watching Kinds of Kindness on my iPad via Disney+ may not be ideal, the fact that it is less of a spectacle and more of an intellectual exercise makes it suitable for the medium.
My Rating:
KINDS OF KINDNESS is now streaming on Disney+. Watch it here and experience the absurd brilliance of Yorgos Lanthimos!
