Kinds of Kindness (2024) – Review

Quick Thoughts – Grade – B+ – This pitch-black triptych anthology is loaded with big laughs and wild moments that harken back to director Yorgos Lanthimos earlier films Dogtooth, The Lobster, and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. It will turn off many with its violence, nudity and offbeat humor, but if you are a fan of storytelling that doesn’t hold your hand and takes you to unique places – you will love it. 

Made up of three tales featuring Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Joe Alwyn and Mamoudou Athie, Kinds of Kindness exists because of the award-winning success of The Favourite and Poor Things. While they are far from mainstream, they are more accessible than the revenge-driven theatrics of The Killing of a Sacred Deer, or the fenced-in compound shenanigans in Dogtooth. I love both films but it’s easy to understand why they are critical darlings and not box office blockbusters. It wasn’t until Lanthimos adopted a more mainstream aesthetic (which is still incredibly non-mainstream) that he found worldwide success and this afforded him the chance to reunite with co-writer Efthimis Filippou (Dogtooth, The Lobster, The Killing of a Sacred Deer) to make Kinds of Kindness. 

The first story (The Death of R.M.F.) focuses on a man (Jesse Plemons) trying and failing to take charge of his life by denying an extreme request given to him by his controlling boss (Willem Dafoe). The second story (R.M.F. is Flying) is about a police officer (Plemons again) becoming suspicious of his wife (Emma Stone) after she returns home from a boating accident. The final story (R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich) involves a water-loving cult member (Stone) who is searching for a messiah while also dealing with a family she left behind. 

All three stories find humor from bodily harm, orgy watch parties, and the sight of Jesse Plemons is a brightly-colored turtleneck. You can tell Lanthimos enjoyed stepping away from the period piece aesthetic, and creating something in a contemporary world that is home to water cults, broken tennis racquets, and doppelgangers. I think he’s done his best work in modern environments (that are incredibly heightened) and I don’t think I’ll ever forget about the animal death in The Lobster and Dogtooth, or anything Barry Keoghan does in The Killing of a Sacred Deer. The early reactions to Kinds of Kindness have been interesting because they seem to be coming from people who are only familiar with The Favourite and Poor Things. I don’t think anything in Kinds of Kindness is shocking because I know what Lanthimos is capable of, and I know that Lanthimos and Filippou excel in creating uncomfortable situations because “life itself makes people uncomfrotbale.” 

After The Favourite and Poor Things, Emma Stone continues to excel while working with Lanthimos (she calls him her “muse”), and her performance in Kinds of Kindness proves that after winning multiple Academy Awards she’s still down to act in films that require her to cut off her thumb and feed it to Jesse Plemons. The MVP of the movie is Jesse Plemons, who portrays characters who range from manic to paranoid to petty. His deadpan delivery and death stare are perfect as he’s begging Wilem Dafoe for forgiveness or asking his friends to watch a sex tape while his wife is missing. I’d love to work on a Lanthimos set because it would be cool to see how he creates an atmosphere of absolute trust in which Hong Chao feels comfortable licking sweat off bodies or Joe Alwyn agrees to play a date-raping husband. 

While leaving the press screening I heard several people mention that the movie doesn’t have a point and were wondering why it exists. This seems a bit unfair as anthologies rarely change the world (very few movies do), and exist to tell condensed stories that are largely hit or miss (the cult short in V/H/S 2 is a big hit). If you’re looking for supreme meaning with Kinds of Kindness you are out of luck, but if you’re looking for a film that features Margaret Qualley jumping into an empty swimming pool (twice), then it’s the movie for you.