Big Yorgos fan here. And I have to say… Kinds of Kindness is… just okay? The great news: a “just okay” Yorgos Lanthimos movie is still more intriguing, clever, and twisted than your average “just okay” movie.
Consisting of three different stories—none of which are good enough to warrant their own standalone movie, sadly enough—Kinds of Kindness has Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, and a few others playing a selection of unrelated but undeniably disturbed characters.
For Yorgos fans, the stories all feel a tad simple, like incomplete sketches that don’t quite have the substance to sustain themselves. And yet the unique filmmaker’s twisted sense of absurdist humor is on display, offering up bursts of wicked cleverness that only so many writer-directors can pull off with a mainstream cast.
The first segment is arguably the best, with diminishing returns from there on out. Plemons gives a fantastic performance as a man who spirals out of control after his domineering boss fires him. This segment is the one where I could have seen Lanthimos digging deeper into the human condition and giving us something deeply depraved and delicious, but as a short, it still kicks—within reason.
The second segment is compelling, too, but feels like it is missing something to bring it all home. Even still, an extremely awkward moment involving a homemade porno is the kind deadpan absurdness that hits home.
Unfortunately, Kinds of Kindness ends with a whimper—perhaps my attention had begun to wane (the movie is nearly three hours long), or perhaps Lanthimos just saved his worst for last. This segment involves a sex cult, rape, and a dude returning from the dead, but it feels more aimless and haphazard than the rest. Though not without its moments, Lanthimos may have found better success had he just cut this one completely and given us a more reasonable runtime.
Kinds of Kindness offers delicious performances—in addition to Plemons, Stone and Dafoe are given some meaty moments—and its unconventional stories, though far from captivating, are more compelling than the vast majority of stories put to screen each year. But there’s a reason that, despite following the Oscar-winning and near-mainstream run of Poor Things in 2023, Kinds of Kindness didn’t get the same kind of push or attention. It’s always fun to see Lanthimos play with various subjects, even if the material isn’t always awards-worthy.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.