Trigger Warning: Kinds of Kindness is a darkly comic film that features murder, maiming, and sexual assault. Some elements, even handled with thought and care, may be troubling for some audiences.
Growing up in the South you learn very quickly that there are different kinds of kindness. There are the kinds that lift up and kinds that stamp down. the kind where someone will look at you sweetly, a million watt smile blasting you in the face, while completely ripping you apart with words that sound pleasant enough to a bystander yet tear and rend with barbs tipped with poison to the receiver. It’s a kind of kindness that’s made of cruelty, an aspect that filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things; The Lobster) pours into every frame of his triptych fable Kinds of Kindness. After a premiere at Cannes 2024 and a theatrical release, Kinds of Kindness is now slated for a physical release, bringing with it a modicum of bonus features that enlighten viewers on the creation and meaning of the film.
L-R: Co-writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos and actor Mamoudou Athie on the set of KINDS OF KINDNESS. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
Across three stories with dubious connection, audiences are invited to observe a man with a complicated relationship with his boss; a man struggling with the loss (and return) of his wife; and a woman caught between the needs of her cult and the life she once lived — each one an exploration of a kind of kindness.
Though this is an initial review, in order to explore certain elements of each story, identifying details that could be seen as spoilers will be included. Consider this our kindness (non-violating edition) to you before proceeding.
Co-written by Lanthimos and frequent collaborator Efthimis Filippou (The Killing of a Sacred Dear; The Lobster; Dogtooth; Alps), Kinds of Kindness is a bit of a labyrinth. Each of the three stories has a clear beginning, middle, and end; each are tenuously connected through the mysterious R.M.F. (Yorgos Stefanakos); and each portrays a different aspect of kindness with a skewed aspect, a cruelty or nastiness that’s being explored through character action or narrative theme. In the first tale, Jesse Plemons’s (Game Night; Killers of the Flower Moon) Robert lives his life through the control of his boss, Raymond (Willem Dafoe), but loses that relationship when Robert finds a line he will not cross. The rest of the sequence is Robert trying to get back into Raymond’s good graces, which, by itself, speaks the destructive nature of attaching oneself to a G-dlike figure while also exploring the lengths one will go to in order to achieve the freedom of lack of choice. For some, the absence of choice, the abdication of responsibility and just being given everything is a gift and, to receive it, a kindness. This makes the heartache Robert feels devastating on a cellular level with the umbilical cord gone as he’s forced to face the world alone. Because the film is a fable, this first sequence can go beyond the surface into the metaphorical as to what it means to be denied by “your creator” upon rejecting their command to kill someone. The Torah (and the Bible, by extension) include a story in which Abraham is ordered to kill Isaac as an offering, Abraham’s faith in G-d prompting him to go through with it until an angel intervenes to save Isaac. Here, there is no intervention, no gentleness of Heaven, no reward for good works in the Lord’s name. Only faithfulness forever and nothing else. Is taking control of another, their abdication of freewill, a kindness or is it malice masked as compassion?
The middle and third stories are, strangely, more obtuse, and where the trigger warning becomes necessary. The middle tale has Plemons’s police officer Daniel undergoing a possible psychotic break as he struggles with his marine biologist wife, Liz (Emma Stone), being lost at sea. A few hints of his struggle with reality take the form of his confusing a suspect for his wife and indulging in a rewatch of a four-way sex tape with two of the other participants. The first element could be written off as despair if not for the fact that the suspect is male and not of the same ethnicity as Liz, while the second seems to focus more on Daniel himself, than Liz (who is in the tape), when watching the tape. Thus, when Liz is found, his rejection of her is strange; compounded by Liz potentially not being herself and being willing to serve Daniel parts of herself (literally) to satiate his hunger. Is the tale exploring how we may bend over backwards for others in order to please them, to remove the parts of ourselves that they demand because of the social contract we agree to when we partner with them? Is it a story of lost identity and how what we think we know about someone is rarely ever the case? Of the three, the middle story is the most dream-like, with its enigmatic ending suggestive of either Daniel’s complete break with reality or the truth that Liz was not who she proclaimed. In either case, neither matters, but whether one understands the kind of kindness that Liz was attempting to gift unto Daniel via bodily offerings, despite him being ever-dismissive, ever-suspicious.
Further into the metaphorical is the final tale which follows Stone and Plemons as members of a sex cult who seem to be tasked with finding a person capable of resurrecting the dead. Why this is needed or the reasoning for these two to be part of the cult is irrelevant to the events that play forth: it is and they are. Here, the quest may be more symbolic as it shows Stone’s Emily seeking a purpose and redemption as she left her husband and young daughter for the cult (as depicted by Emily’s secret breakings-in to her old home to leave things for her daughter). Within this segment, Lanthimos and Filippou juxtapose sex that is given freely-versus forcibly taken, making the violation something that (as is often the case in modern society) places full blame on Emily and not the one who did it. Cast out from the Eden that is the cult’s home, literally abandoned at a gate by the story’s Adam and Eve (represented by Dafoe’s Omi and Hong Chau’s Aka), Emily is left to wander and seek redemption; only to bungle it in such a manner as all we can do is laugh. Is the kind of kindness exerted here about the strength of a unified community? About sexual power and those who take it? Is it about the gift of giving life (or resurrecting it) and the kindness that comes from not living in a world where these issues are always top of mind? This segment is, perhaps, the most esoteric and, as a result, harder to parse.
The bonus features accompanying the home release offer too few answers for those who seek them. Plemons and Dafoe both comment on how neither has a full understanding of what their characters are doing or why, with Plemons commenting that Lanthimos wouldn’t provide clear answers to questions and Dafoe likening his confusion for the same way people do things in real life they don’t understand all the time. We do learn a bit about how this started in the writing process as one story, the first, and Lanthimos and Filippou decided to make it a three-part fable using the same cast and small changes story-to-story. We learn how composer Jerskin Fendrix (Poor Things) crafted the medieval-like score having only seen a few frames of the film, as well as thoughts on locations from cinematography Robbie Ryan (Poor Things; C’mon C’mon) sharing insight into the significance of shooting on 35 mm film and costume designer Jennifer Johnson (I, Tonya; Blonde) addressing the differences in outfits for each story. It’s interesting in terms of the making of the film and showcases the close working relationship between Stone and Lanthimos, but does not provide the kinds of answers some may seek.
Kinds of Kindness is often described as misanthropic, an element which does exist in several of Lanthimos’s other works, but doesn’t seem to be a fully-apt descriptor here. The film doesn’t so much imply or state that humanity isn’t worth trusting so much as these stories ask us to consider what it is we’re willing to give up to feel whole. What are we willing to sacrifice — choice, control, identity, family — in order to become the version of ourselves we wish to be. The first two stories involve a G-d-like figure preying upon vulnerable individuals, but, in both instances, the supposed victims are given multiple opportunities to make a different choice. This does not absolve the more villainous requests made of the central characters in each tale, but it does create a perspective wherein it’s not the film that’s lost its taste for society as a whole, but those who view kindness as righteousness and who wield that kindness like a weapon. From this view, Kinds of Kindness, in its role as a fable, is a warning and not a declaration akin to stories like The Favourite (2018) or the implication of the end of The Lobster (2015). Of the kinds of kindness that exist, seek to use the one that doesn’t harm or, at the least, leaves the smallest wake.
Kinds of Kindness Special Features:
- It Takes All Kinds: The Vision of Kinds of Kindness: Join cast and crew for a behind-the-scenes look at this unique triptych story written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou. See how the sets, costumes, cinematography and music amplify the film’s themes, and discover — maybe — what RMF stands for. (15:14)
- Two (2) Deleted Scenes (1:00)
Available on digital August 27th, 2024.
Available on Hulu August 30th, 2024.
Available on Blu-ray and DVD October 8th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Searchlight Pictures Kinds of Kindness webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
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Categories: Home Video, Reviews, streaming
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