Kinds Of Kindness

This review may contain spoilers!

 

Kinds of Kindness is a triptych drama, three stories that all have interconnecting themes of love and power, with the same cast members appearing in each narrative. The first story followed Robert, a successful businessman who was engaged in a relationship with his boss, who also dictated all of Robert's daily actions. The second story followed Daniel, a police officer whose wife went missing at sea. When she is rescued, he doesn't believe the woman who has returned is really his wife. The final story follows Emily, a member of a sex cult who is venturing across America to find the messiah figure of the cult.

 

These are very creative contemporary tales layered in a way that make us think of their connection. What is the thread that holds this triptych together? Yorgos Lanthimos has always been a master when it comes to dissecting relationships, particularly the importance we place within them and the power that is held in a relationship. In each of these stories, power is wielded over another to dire ends; with one partner compromising the other entirely. I loved the first narrative for this especially. Seeing Robert mindlessly bend to Raymond's influence was transfixing, that whole world felt so alien and yet entirely real to the capitalist Western lifestyle. As Robert resists Raymond, struggling from the extremes of control and ownership, we see every part of Robert's life fall apart. Only when Robert compromises his last shred of human morality is he folded back into Raymond's embrace and restored in the eyes of his master. The film drives this sense of theme well over the course of the film, but it delivers its first punch the strongest.

 

Something that I'll always expect from a Yorgos Lanthimos film is an incredible sense of style, visually this film continues to hold strong to that. The film is filled with sharp angles that feel claustrophobic, or incredible unsettling and puzzling wide shots. Yet all of his shots feel very styled and hold a sense of ownership to his signature aesthetic.

 

Margaret Qualley, who played Vivian/Martha/Rebecca/Ruth, is an upcoming actress with a developing sense of range I find fascinating; Qualley played a meek housewife worst, which made sense when her other roles gave her so much more to bite into. Willem Dafoe, who played Raymond/George/Omi, feels so natural to Lanthimos' style of character; Dafoe inhabits these roles but also the eccentric setting of a Lanthimos mindscape. Emma Stone, who played Rita/Liz/Emily, really shows her ability to inhabit such a varied range of roles; Stone leaps from someone soft and caring to a role that is frantic and desperate for a certain kind of satisfaction.

 

However, the best performance came from Jesse Plemons, who played Robert/Daniel/Andrew. Plemons plays some very interesting figures who wield insecurity at the forefront of their being. These were roles defined by their commitment to others, in two cases their desire for the other consumed them in uniquely unsettling ways. Plemons could break your heart in one storyline, while feeling like an abhorrent force of abuse in another. His character work as Robert and Daniel was some of the best character acting of the film. He delivered dialogue with a disarming distance that is trademark Lanthimos; yet within that he found room to define those roles all his own.

 

 I watch a lot of cinema, but I'm not always the best at judging a feature with surrealist or even absurdist elements. The truth is, I feel these aspects have to be really well worked on to craft something artistic and purposeful. Lanthimos is a director I have always gone back and forth on, The Lobster puzzled and lost me at times, while The Favourite was one of the finest films I had seen that year. Kinds Of Kindness is that hazy middle ground for me, it tells some masterful themes but the narratives are heavy-handed, perverse and a little exploitative at times. I thought the second narrative lost all sense of trajectory for the film, telling a story that contributed the least. However, the final story had something interesting to say, but it delivered those themes like a blunt force impact; slogging through sexual violence, suicide and perverse displays of eroticism to gather those meanings. I wondered if those extremes found their way to being art? The first story held tough elements such as these, but their work within the narrative was far more deliberate. The triptych quality of the film also meant the pacing fell flat if you every hit a narrative you weren't invested in, though this is more of a flaw in the medium.

 

I found the editing entirely roguish, bouncing around and really running rough shod over the flow of a scene. While the film looked impressive, the way a scene was held together often felt confusing and aimless. I also thought the disconcerting score was abominable, a simplistic device to convey discord. The soundtrack was extremely random and rarely paired nicely with the scenes in which these tracks were used.

Hong Chau, who played Sarah/Sharon/Aka, felt very bland within this film; her time spent as a spouse on the side felt like it gave little to play with. Mamoudou Athie, who played Will/Neil/Morgue Nurse, really just felt like he was rattling through the script; Athie delivers dialogue in a mild disinterested tone that makes his roles hard to care about. Joe Alwyn, who played Collectibles Appraiser/Passenger/Joseph, felt like he really struggled the most in this style of role; his roles all felt quite two-dimensionally reprehensible too. Hunter Schafer, who played Anna, didn't really give much to her scene; Schafer found like a bigger name dropping in to a film she didn't necessarily blend in nicely with.

Yorgos Lanthimos' latest feature has all of his traditional wondrous strange style but often strays in its trajectory. I would give Kinds Of Kindness a 6/10.