Writer/Director Yorgos Lanthamos heads into the Twilight Zone with his tryptic of stories in Kinds of Kindness bringing Emma Stone, Jesse Plemmons, Margreat Qualey, and Willem Dafoe along with him.
Kinds of Kindness is said to be about love. The love we give. The love we receive. The love we think we deserve. Maybe, somewhere buried deeply into the layer cake of everything, it is. Lanthamos and co-writer Efthimis Filippou have created tales of fantastical that pierce through human interaction and human nature on the outskirts or fringes. Much more a spiritual cousin to Lanthamos’ best work Dogtooth uses those troupes of science fiction (in Dogtooth’s instance) to reveal our foley as humans.
Divided into three distinct stories The Death of R.M.F., R.M.F. is Flying, R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich all starring the same cast in unique roles that contrast against each other. Each goes deeper into the realm of speculative fiction. The Death of R.M.F. deals with the relationship between an obsessive boss (Willem Dafoe), his employee (Jesse Plemons), and the nightmarish control said boss exerts over the employee’s life. R.M.F. is Flying concerns husband (Plemons) certain that his wife (Emma Stone) recently found after a tragic accident left her stranded on an island, is a clone. R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich involves a cult searching for the next messiah who can revive the dead with touch and the cult’s two “investigators” (played by Plemons and Stone).
The film plays like Lanthamos’s own Twilight Zone, giving us insight into the various types of relationships on a grander scale. Each never strays from the core relationship and the core conceit pushing both further and further into the fantastical while somehow remaining grounded in the relationship in question.
In The Death of R.M.F. as the employee (Plemons) begins to unravel and push towards psychopathic actions he becomes more and more relatable, the desperate man trying to get back to the relationship he took for granted. In R.M.F. is Flying the wife (Stone) is being pushed towards self-harm in what her husband (Plemons) can only appear to be gaslighting/abuse. In R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich it’s the insidious lengths a man (Joe Alwyn) will go to bring his wife (Stone) back into the “familial fold” over what he thinks is a “crazy sex cult”.
Each goes to the point of illogical actions until … well that is part of the point of Kinds of Kindness. To ruin what Lanthamos and Filippou have designed would be to rob the film of its poisoned delights and needle-sharp points. Kinds of Kindness is not the type of film that makes one feel good. Does it entertain? Certainly, the film has the precision of Swiss clockwork. Is it thought-provoking? Absolutely, though Lanthamos’s darker insights into human nature could rub the less adventuresome cinephile the wrong way.
Those who are attuned to the director’s continued exploration into the stylized storytelling and the darker parts of the human soul will find a perfected rotted confection at the core of Kinds of Kindness. One that could only end with Stone’s cult devotee dancing joyously in slow motion as she has found her way back … to where? We will let you experience that for yourself.
Kinds of Kindness is unlike anything you will see this summer and possibly in the entirety of 2024.
Writer/Director Yorgos Lanthamos heads into the Twilight Zone with his tryptic of stories in Kinds of Kindness bringing Emma Stone, Jesse Plemmons, Margreat Qualey, and Willem Dafoe along with him.
Kinds of Kindness is said to be about love. The love we give. The love we receive. The love we think we deserve. Maybe, somewhere buried deeply into the layer cake of everything, it is. Lanthamos and co-writer Efthimis Filippou have created tales of fantastical that pierce through human interaction and human nature on the outskirts or fringes. Much more a spiritual cousin to Lanthamos’ best work Dogtooth uses those troupes of science fiction (in Dogtooth’s instance) to reveal our foley as humans.
Divided into three distinct stories The Death of R.M.F., R.M.F. is Flying, R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich all starring the same cast in unique roles that contrast against each other. Each goes deeper into the realm of speculative fiction. The Death of R.M.F. deals with the relationship between an obsessive boss (Willem Dafoe), his employee (Jesse Plemons), and the nightmarish control said boss exerts over the employee’s life. R.M.F. is Flying concerns husband (Plemons) certain that his wife (Emma Stone) recently found after a tragic accident left her stranded on an island, is a clone. R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich involves a cult searching for the next messiah who can revive the dead with touch and the cult’s two “investigators” (played by Plemons and Stone).
The film plays like Lanthamos’s own Twilight Zone, giving us insight into the various types of relationships on a grander scale. Each never strays from the core relationship and the core conceit pushing both further and further into the fantastical while somehow remaining grounded in the relationship in question.
In The Death of R.M.F. as the employee (Plemons) begins to unravel and push towards psychopathic actions he becomes more and more relatable, the desperate man trying to get back to the relationship he took for granted. In R.M.F. is Flying the wife (Stone) is being pushed towards self-harm in what her husband (Plemons) can only appear to be gaslighting/abuse. In R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich it’s the insidious lengths a man (Joe Alwyn) will go to bring his wife (Stone) back into the “familial fold” over what he thinks is a “crazy sex cult”.
Each goes to the point of illogical actions until … well that is part of the point of Kinds of Kindness. To ruin what Lanthamos and Filippou have designed would be to rob the film of its poisoned delights and needle-sharp points. Kinds of Kindness is not the type of film that makes one feel good. Does it entertain? Certainly, the film has the precision of Swiss clockwork. Is it thought-provoking? Absolutely, though Lanthamos’s darker insights into human nature could rub the less adventuresome cinephile the wrong way.
Those who are attuned to the director’s continued exploration into the stylized storytelling and the darker parts of the human soul will find a perfected rotted confection at the core of Kinds of Kindness. One that could only end with Stone’s cult devotee dancing joyously in slow motion as she has found her way back … to where? We will let you experience that for yourself.
Kinds of Kindness is unlike anything you will see this summer and possibly in the entirety of 2024.
Kinds of Kindness is in theaters June 21st
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