I am loaded up and ready to go! Since we last spoke about Yorgos Lanthimos, I have traversed his filmography. The Lobster, what a hoot! Extremely original. The Killing of a Sacred Deer was not as visceral as I was expecting, given its reputation. But The Favourite holds up, very well on a second viewing for me – go Olivia Colman! I feel like Poor Things took the world by storm only mere months ago; at least here in Australia it did, with its January release, and Yorgos is apparently not a man to sit down, with Emma Stone in toe. I think I would describe Lanthimos’s style as prickly – he’s certainly a master of quality, but don’t get too comfy in his movies, because there’s always something sharp awaiting round the corner to snap you up straight. Case in point, Kinds of Kindness.
Kinds of Kindness is another anthology – my second in only twice as many movies – and tells the stories of Robert (Jesse Plemons), a man who can no longer fulfill his job description; Daniel (Jesse Plemons) whose wife is missing; and Emily (Emma Stone), alongside Andrew (Jesse Plemons), tasked with trying to find a mysterious woman who can bring the dead back to life.
Kinds of Kindness is good(?). I think(?). My main take-away from this movie is how I feel duped. This isn’t a full-length feature, but a collection of three shorts sown together by the idea that we care about what R.M.F. (Yorgos Stefanakos) will be doing in each – a wordless character with very minimal importance. It’s all very strange. I’m sure Lanthimos could have gotten a development deal for six crazy episodes or so, for a TV series on Amazon Prime or Netflix, and I wouldn’t have had to get on my winter cozies to track down this movie on limited release. I could’ve watched these shorts at home on telly with tea breaks or something 🙄💁♂️ Kinds of Kindness is only a step above Beau is Afraid for extremely obnoxious pacing, which means it’s slow, oh so very slow. I think I understood the first short – I think it’s an absurdist comment on the hamster wheel of the work industry, how we shape our lives, and are suckered into trying to do everything perfectly to appease those who will tell us what to do; even to the point of losing the ability to express a freedom of choice when things go awry 👍 I think I understand the second short too, by the end – is it about the price of love? And how this copy of Liz (Emma Stone) is programmed to think of love as unquestioning, which ultimately turns out to be the way to beat her, and the real Liz is returned. Where did this copy come from? Don’t know. And for most of the second short’s runtime, it’s basically Mr. & Mrs. Smith, with our married pair out to destroy each other, but through lies instead of firearms. I don’t know if the ending absolves Daniel completely though, as he’s thought to have cracked from the very start – but I suppose it’s meant to be vague, in the same way we wonder if Romeo is off his chops in Romeo & Juliet, for going so quickly from Rosaline to Juliet, because is he really experiencing love at first sight, or is he just obsessed with love? Similarly, is Daniel so entuned to his wife that he can notice she is different where nobody else can, or can he not see through his own idyllic perception? Even the cat is happy to cuddle up to the faux Liz by the end, after it hissed initially, and I didn’t think cats were so forgiving. Anyway, this is my theory, and I could be correct, or I could be a big dumb-dumb.
As for the third short, your guess is as good as mine. I’d honestly stopped caring, worn down by the movie’s pacing and bleakness. By the time Emma Stone is measuring boobies, again, and putting her fingers in Margaret Qualley’s mouth, I had to really strain hard to remember in which short I’d seen that before, and, of course, it happened in the same one at the beginning. How did Ruth’s twin (Margaret Qualley) know what Emily and her cultist organisation were looking for? Don’t know. And while Emily is giving her groovy jig at the end, I was truly numb to anything this movie could do; because this movie only confirms what I pondered about Yorgos Lanthimos in my opening, that he will do whatever he wants at any given moment. So, I suppose I must retract my previous uncertain sentiment – Kinds of Kindness isn’t a good movie, if I can admit that I completely lost interest, and was marking out the time. As the movie’s final moments come, tragic as they are, a bloke in the cinema ahead of me actually gasped, upset by what had happened – and I felt like yelling out to him, that “mate, nothing for any of these characters has ended well, so where is the surprise?”
Kinds of Kindness – I can only think that this “triptych fable” is called so as if the movie is meant to be a courtesy, to have you leave the theatre and enjoy the time you have left. Seriously, be thankful that all peoples don’t talk so robotically. Be thankful that people don’t get inexplicably raped for visiting their daughter, and veterinarians aren’t always flung through windscreens. Similarly to Poor Things, and how I was adverse to some of its themes, I still do find Kinds of Kindness underhandedly uplifting in a weird way 🤔 But I don’t know why Lanthimos thinks we desire such perverted sex scenes – that wife swap scene makes for a funny joke, but is so over the top in execution that it becomes off-putting again. Even showing Willem Dafoe and Emma Stone kiss in such extreme close-up – gross. So, congratulations Lanthimos, you made me uncomfortable. But in The Lobster, I actually found the non-sex plotline inspired quite an intense intimacy, so I know this director is capable of doing something nice when he feels the story calls for it. Obviously his last two movies haven’t cleared the bar 😕 I’m starting to think of Lanthimos as that distant kid you meet at school, that you hear is brilliant, but you don’t really want to talk to. All the adults may fawn over him, and tell you he’s going places, but he’s not warm, and any connection you feel to his talent is the exception, not the majority. Kinds of Kindness wants to be profound, and maybe it is hereafter, but it also weighs like a brick. I don’t always know how to rate such things – is it well made? Yeah. Is it taking chances? Yeah. Is it saying more than the sum of its parts? Probably. But was the experience a slog? Most definitely. So a 2.0 seems about right now. Now, I’m going outside to live my life… until the next movie comes along 🤩
2.0
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