Kinds of Kindness
Searchlight PicturesBefore Kinds of Kindness starts properly, the classic Eurythmics song “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) starts blasting over the Searchlight studio logo. “Sweet dreams are made of this / Who am I to disagree? / I traveled the world and the seven seas / Everybody’s looking for something” are the opening lyrics, a perfect introduction to the twisted contemporary world that filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and longtime collaborator and screenwriter Efthymis Filippou have created here.
The characters of Lanthimos are no strangers to looking for “something”: Bella Baxter looked to forge her own identity, The Lobster’s David looked for his own form of love in a binary world, and the father and mother from Dogtooth looked for a way to protect their children from the cruelties of reality. In Kinds of Kindness, a perverse tryptic of 50-minute-long self-contained stories, the characters are looking for acceptance. The lyrics “Some of them want to use you / Some of them want to get used by you / Some of them want to abuse you / Some of them want to be abused” herald the darkness that is about to unfold.
As if on a theatrical merry-go-round, each of the three stories sees the same performers donning separate masks, certain actions, words, or behaviors bleeding from one story to the next, with only one character seemingly never changing: R.M.F., played by Yorgos Stefanakos, a Greek friend of the filmmakers. What R.M.F. stands for is one of many mysteries that Kinds of Kindness leaves unresolved.
To those who missed the old Lanthimos, the one who did not shy away from deep moments of vile humanity, the one whose films left audiences pondering their meaning even days after the credits rolled: rejoice! Kinds of Kindness ditches the (effectively) blunt storytelling of The Favorite and Poor Things in favor of the grotesque tragicomedy of Alps and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Anyone looking for the overt comedy and irreverence of his previous Oscar-winning features will remain quite shocked by how different this feels. Each of the three stories builds upon one another, heightening the absurdity, violence, and sensuality.
“Pleasing” is what every main character of this collection wants to do. In the first segment, “The Death of R.M.F.”, a man whose life is insanely micro-managed by his boss tries to become his own person, only to long for his days as a submissive, without worrying about how to live life. The second story, “R.M.F. is Flying”, focuses on a missing woman who, upon returning home, goes to extreme lengths to prove to her husband that she is not a doppelgänger. Lastly, “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich” explores two cultists’ search for a person capable of bringing the dead to life.
The triptych of Kinds of Kindness covers every key aspect of life in the 21st century: the inherent slavery and implicit gratefulness of working in a capitalist society, the unspoken expectations that bind two people in a romantic relationship, and the unshakable need to have faith in something in a faithless world. Work, love, and religion are pillars of humanity, but they have changed and adapted to each time period. What Lanthimos and Filippou do here is pose plenty of questions to the viewers, with no answer in sight, essentially putting a funhouse mirror on the big screen so that each person can see their crooked reflection. The constant feeling of dread, of discomfort in watching these men and women ruin their lives trying to please each other, maiming themselves or hurting others in the hopes of being looked at with love and respect, is painful in a way that will undoubtedly disturb many. That is less because of the graphic content that is carefully but effectively sprinkled throughout the nearly 3-hour runtime, and more so because of how real everything ultimately feels. Sure, no one would commit the extreme act that Willem Dafoe’s corporate magnet asks of Jesse Plemons’s Robert, but we have all done something questionable, blinded by the love for someone we like, simply because they asked us to. It is Kafkaesque in a way that is more natural than plenty of direct adaptations of the Czech writer’s works.
As upsetting as Kinds of Kindness may seem, it is a testament to the writing, direction, and cast that it is still a rather humorous experience, if darker than nearly everything Lanthimos has directed so far. In a way, going from the broad appeal of Poor Things to the niche perversion of this is the best way for the Greek filmmaker to cash in on his status in Hollywood. Major props must be given to every actor in here, no performance feeling lesser than the other, with each performer reinventing themselves in surprising, unexpected ways. While Emma Stone once again embraces her bold physicality without holding back (her dance featured in the trailer is a cheer-worthy triumph in the context of the film) and Willem Dafoe, Mamoudou Athie, Margaret Qualley, and Hong Chau all shine, it is Jesse Plemons’s Cannes-winning performance that steals the entire film. The first story, which sees him as the sole protagonist, could stand on its own as a grim portrayal of a desperate, pathetic people-pleaser, his stone-cold facade turning into unforgettable grimaces and pleading for love and mercy.
Gone are the disorienting wide angles of the previous two-period pieces: Robbie Ryan’s cinematography alternates almost exclusively between wide shots, each actor moving around like a puppet on a stage, to delightfully uncomfortable, claustrophobic close-ups of orange juices, tangled lips, and severed fingers that never fail to elicit a jolt. This visual contrast, complemented once again by an unusual and eerie score by Jerskin Fendrix, is perfectly suited to what Kinds of Kindness is all about: a series of dark vignettes that ponder on what it means to be human, to seek love and warmth without the capacity to express this longing in a healthy, direct way. There will be walkouts, there will be toxic discourse, and there will be plenty of baffled reactions to the content, form, and length of this film. This will lead to far more interesting discussions than if Lanthimos created another crowd-pleaser with a simple, direct message at its core. Kinds of Kindness does not have a message, but a reminder: everybody is looking for something, and be wary of what that “something” may be.