If you were expecting another Poor Things from Yorgos Lanthimos, just four months out from that film winning four Oscars, Kinds of Kindness will almost certainly alienate you immensely. Poor Things was actually something of an anomaly among Lanthimos’ filmography -it’s one of his only movies that ends on a somewhat upbeat note, and is in relation to that such a buoyant and vibrantly charming movie -even where it addresses severe subject matter. But this is a guy who cut his chops on Dogtooth and broke onto the American scene with The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer -good movies, but all fairly bleak and unsettling.
Kinds of Kindness, incidentally co-written with Efthimis Filippou who collaborated on most of Lanthimos’ movies before The Favourite, is in this vein but even more perplexing -an anthology movie of absurdist dark sketches that don’t seem to revolve around the theme of kindness so much as the various kinds of cruelties that maintain psychopathic power dynamics. The triptych is linked by seemingly one minor though critical character who crosses the stories where the rest of the cast play multiple roles -simply referred to as R.M.F. (Yorgos Stefanakos), whose story we see non-chronologically in the periphery of other disturbed and distressed characters played by an ensemble of tremendous actors giving some of their best albeit strangest performances.
Jesse Plemons won the Best Actor award at Cannes for what might principally be the first of these, “The Death of R.M.F.”, in which he plays Robert -a man whose entire life choices have been dictated by his eccentric boss Raymond (Willem Dafoe), without whom he is completely incapable of functioning, as he finds upon refusing Raymond’s request to intentionally crash his car into another person (R.M.F.). Plemons plays this pitiable subservient drone in such a disarmingly casual way he sets the tone for the kind of universe that will pervade all three stories. He is constantly concealing a deep inner misery, as we learn the scope of Robert’s fealty to Raymond extends to even the choice not to have children with his wife Sarah (Hong Chau) -and what he’s had to do to ensure this. And there’s a sense of bleak tension and gaslighting that follows him after his rebuke -a nicely set up conspiracy that sees him gradually lose everything, and go to rather bizarre lengths to try and get it all back. In a warped way it’s quite funny just how much is piled on him and how Plemons responds to it with such mystifying yet disturbingly sincere conviction.
Some parts of this are still there, though with a more brutal edge in "R.M.F. is Flying" where he plays Daniel, a cop whose marine scientist wife Liz (Emma Stone) is suddenly rescued (by the titular character) after having gone missing for quite some time. Only Liz is behaving in unusual, unstable ways -contradictory to her former self; and suspecting that she is not really herself, paranoia leads Daniel to act out in strange ways too. This is the darkest and certainly the most explicit of the trifecta, as it teases the validity of Daniel's perception and sanity over his suspicions his peculiar but extremely doting wife is an imposter. The intensity is way more pronounced than anywhere else in the anthology as the craziness escalates with little suggestions of what madness could really be going on. But at the same time it maintains that undercurrent of humour, and in fact features the greatest joke of the entire movie. The whole cast is good, Plemons and Stone delivering a great two-hander of a performance as each vies to psychologically dominate the other, right through to a grisly and opaque ending.
It's a rather abrupt shift from there into "R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich" where Stone and Plemons play Emily and Andrew, a pair of researchers attempting to bring dead people back to life through the use of a medium -primarily experimenting on, you guessed it, R.M.F. The pair are also members of an elite sex cult led by Omi (Dafoe) and his wife Aka (Chau), who seem to be funding the research and providing haven as Emily obsessively tries to track down a woman (Margaret Qualley) from her dreams who she believes is their perfect candidate. Even more than the last, this tale goes down unexpected routes of both grimness and irony, coupling its comedic subject matter with some moments of profound severity -one particular tonal shift that isn't so effectively integrated. But more than any other episode, it accentuates Stone's complete immersion in Lanthimos' craft -she is astounding all throughout. Plemons is more subdued, though at his most quietly amusing -and Dafoe is another notable highlight. For as wild as it is, this is the story that, but for its suggestion of telepathy, seems most grounded in a recognizable -though still slightly off-kilter- reality.
Though distinct stories, Lanthimos and his familiar crew give these a lot of visual and technical consistency. The language of Robbie Ryan’s tracking shots remains singular, as does that wide lens that gives the world of the film an alien look. Each instalment is edited with a mixture of elegance and bluntness; beautiful, precise images and ones that leer, with the overarching tone following suit. This may be Lanthimos at his most cynical, his most mocking, and the compositions of the shorts reflect that in their visual brashness. The music by Jerskin Fendrix is dim and eerie, recalling Wendy Carlos’ work on The Shining, cultivating an atmosphere of dread in each story, where it’s not undercut by something more eclectic. The aesthetics of each chapter are colourful, though distinctly so -the faded brown of Stone’s outfit against a bright purple luxury car in particular from the third stands out. And obviously the primary cast remains fixed to Plemons, Stone, Dafoe, Qualley, Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Joe Alwyn (Hunter Schafer appears but disappointingly only for a brief role in the final story); all of whom do play different parts each time but with tiny linkages, such as Athie always being an accessory and Alwyn always being a dick. Each version of Plemons has some unsettling undercurrent to their personality. Dafoe always has some power over Stone, whether as her boss, her father, or her priest (curiously, in Poor Things he was essentially all three).
But of course what is more significant is the linkages in themes -the notions that are on the minds of Lanthimos and Filippou and which they unload here in curious if sometimes messy fashion. Perhaps the greatest such preoccupation is control, as each story features characters exerting intense control over someone, and how those not in control respond to their lack of autonomy. Robert finds himself lost -unaware of the depths of his dependence on Raymond, Daniel reacts with subtle shows of violence, and Emily becomes erratic and leans further into obsession. All three protagonists are victims of gaslighting at some point or another related to this -Daniel may even be gaslighting himself. And there's a heavy component of sexual power at play -Robert is implied to be in a casual relationship with Raymond, Omi's sexual influence on Emily is emphasized, and Daniel and Liz have a very explicit sexual history that is turned on its head and perverted when Daniel finds a substitute for his sexual dominance. It all amounts to this broad point on controlling personalities that is fascinating if not particularly pointed; but the sharper touchstone inherent is the motivation that drives Robert Daniel and Liz, and Emily into these dynamics. For each it's a little different -for Robert it is pure dependence, for Daniel it is an immovable image of his wife, Liz a misguided love, and for Emily it is an unwavering need for validation. Bits of each of these are surely present in the others too, but they come to the fore more prominently from case to case.
And it comes back to that title, the supposed kinds of kindness that come about only through cruelty. Each character does in a way achieve their goals, but only through one or more horrendous acts. It seems to be the primary quasi-satirical point that Lanthimos is making. Now whether it's pointed at human nature or systems of power, both or more, is a little more complex to determine. He certainly raises the point starkly though. Kinds of Kindness is not a movie looking to capture the same recognition as Poor Things; in fact it seems to deliberately reject much of the kind of optimism that movie left you with. And it doesn't much care about bringing that audience back. But it is just as creative and rambunctious in its artistry. Not all of its ideas coalesce and some of its points feel like mere shock value -but it is an ample showcase of its breadth of talent, funny and intense in its unrestrained surreal realities; and overall it is too effectively enigmatic a weird little set of fables to be ignored.
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