Kinds of Kindness is the new film from iconoclastic filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos; an absurdist anthology featuring some familiar actors from his prior films (Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe) as well as a few impressive new faces.

 

The film is in some ways a return to the awkward standoffishness of the director’s earlier films The Lobster or Killing of a Sacred Deer, and Kinds of Kindness is confident in its weirdness and its exploration of its themes of control, sacrifice, and devotion.

 

However, the combination of its long runtime, its anthological structure and general tasty weirdness will likely be alienating to some of the audience that Lanthimos won over with The Favourite and Poor Things.

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Jesse Plemons is a key player in the three stories told in Kinds of Kindness. As with the other actors Lanthimos is playing with here, Plemons is asked a lot of. However, he is entirely engrossed in his characters and is unrecognisable between each of the stories - his performances are definitely great elements of the film.

 

Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe are similarly excellent as expected and the three of these actors together help convey the weirdness that Lanthimos is looking for, while also probably being the key to bringing the audience along for the rest of Lanthimos’s unorthodox storytelling.

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The dark sense of humour in Kinds of Kindness is key for the stories to avoid feeling entirely bleak and alienating, as the themes considered are challenging enough in the way the story addresses them. But moments of irony, surreality and preposterousness work really well in helping to avoid Kinds of Kindness slipping too far in that direction.

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Kinds of Kindness is a challenging film from Yorgos Lanthimos; in its themes, runtime and its anthological structure. Excellent performances from the cast however, especially Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe and Jesse Plemons help the film succeed with its dark sense of humour.