Kinds of Kindness is an intelligent, mean, disturbed, and crazed endeavour that will alienate as much as it will enthral. With an excellent ensemble cast, arresting cinematography, darkly comical humour, and a provocative outlook on existence – it may be nasty, but it is daring filmmaking, nonetheless.
After the Oscar-winning success and mainstream appeal toward last year’s surreal fairy-tale Poor Things, Yorgos Lanthimos has returned with an absurdist black comedy anthology. Gone is Australia’s recent collaborator and scriptwriter Tony McNamara (who also wrote 2018’s The Favourite), and returning is Dogtooth, Alps, The Lobster and Killing of a Sacred Deer writer Efthimis Filippou. For a film about kindness, this is anything but kind.
Kinds of Kindness adopts a non-traditional narrative structure. The same cast members appear in three stories but play a different role each time. Recurring members include Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, and Mamoudou Athie as they explore the central concerns of corporate power structures, the manipulations and fantasies born throughout relationships, and the corruption of community and faith. All the stars are all uniformly outstanding, with Plemons, Stone and Dafoe particularly giving eclectic and varied performances across the trio of fables.
Each of the three stories—connected thematically by a recurring notion that human beings are merely wads of flesh, barrels of liquid, and individuals full of anxious desire—proves to its audience in each story that they will go to the utmost extreme to prove their devotion and love. Seeking companionship and belonging is no easy feat – cynicism and cruelty are par for the course in this world.
The first story, ‘The Death of R.M.F.’, focuses on Jesse Plemons’ Robert, who does anything to please and seek approval from his boss, Raymond (Dafoe). Raymond controls everything in Robert’s life—the belongings inside his home, his relationship with his wife Sarah (Chau), and the minutiae of his daily routine. Books, foods, contraception, weight—if it is not Raymond’s way, Robert will find and do everything he can to appease him.
When Raymond tasks Robert with murdering someone by staging a car crash, Robert chickens out. This decision is Robert’s first act of autonomous rebellion – his refusal to commit such an act causes his life to fall apart. A blend of hilarity and tragedy ensues as Robert desperately attempts to reclaim his life and attachment to Raymond. After meeting another vying for Raymond’s affection, Rita (Stone), he realises he is both expendable and replaceable. The crescendo of this story is a film highlight – Plemons encapsulates a cascading sense of self-degradation with great acumen.
As the most focused of the three stories, ‘The Death of R.M.F.’ effectively critiques the symbiotic relationship between employees and their corporations. Raymond exploits his power to create a toxic lifestyle for Robert to follow—his entire identity is at the will of his employer. He has trained Robert to find fulfilment, and ultimately survival, out of what he achieves in subordination. His entire personal life is intertwined with the professional. It is a cynical statement on capitalism’s way of subsuming one’s autonomy – people are easily thrown to the side if they do not uphold the bottom line.
The second tale, ‘R.M.F. is Flying,’ focuses again on Plemons—this time as a police officer named Daniel, who is mourning his wife’s disappearance, Liz (Stone). She is a biologist deemed lost at sea during a scientific excursion. When Liz returns suddenly, she acts strangely toward Daniel. She no longer fits into her shoes; she enjoys different food, and her interests differ entirely. Daniel begins to question if the Liz returned to him is genuine, not a false imposter. As a reaction, Liz desperately attempts to prove to Daniel that she is her true self; warped and manipulative acts of devotion ensue in violent ways. Daniel has an idealised version of his wife inside his head, and very little will change the fantasy unfolding before his eyes.
This middle story becomes the most bizarre of the trio: dog islands, severed body parts, and passion-fuelled orgies are all caught up in the mix. Thankfully, at its core, ‘R.M.F. is Flying’ ultimately explores the unrealistic expectations people, particularly partners, place upon each other. Abuse and manipulation become the only options for Daniel when Liz no longer fits into the mould that he has created of her – upsetting what he has come to accept as his reality. Liz’s desire to feel at home again comes at the price of proving herself by indulging in Daniel’s fantasy. Love is once again corrosive if one side dominates the other.
The final story, ‘R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich’, switches the perspective from Jesse Plemons to Emma Stone, who plays a cultist named Emily on a search for a woman with revivification powers. This section is the longest of the three stories and could have easily been a singular feature film. When a subject named Anna (Hunter Schafer) fails to be the messianic figure she hoped for, Emily seeks a new lead that finds her embroiled with twin sisters Ruth and Rebecca (Qualley). Emily drives recklessly in a purple car with a fellow member, Andrew (Plemons), who is testing subjects for cult leaders Omi (Dafoe) and Aka (Chau).
Whilst estranged from her daughter on account of avoiding her abusive ex-husband (Alwyn) and upholding the sex cult’s rules (she must drink water laced with his and Aka’s tears; to be granted a blessing she must have exclusive sex with Omi), Emily follows her dreams to uphold the desires of her faith and community. Still, she faces rejection and condemnation for actions in and outside her control. Victim blaming, sacrifice and cruel irony drive this tale – Emily’s quest is, if not more, desperate than the two previous sections where the end goal is a journey toward redemption that strips away the self.
‘R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich’ is a cynical condemnation toward faiths that exploit artificial expectations for community and enlightenment. When sacrificing one’s worth, ethics and family for the wish fulfilment of others, it becomes clear that these belief systems are to be avoided, laughed at, and rejected. While it is the most exhaustive of the three stories, it is also having the most comical payoff.
Described as a ‘triptych fable,’ these surreal, bizarre experiences are loosely linked under a recurring character, ‘ R.M.F’ (Yorgos Stefanakos). Lanthimos has been cagey in explaining who or what R.M.F stands for. The most fitting explanation is to place each story under each part of the initials—what one ascribes to each letter is in the eye of the beholder. The character appears as a cameo across the three stories – once as an employee, a helicopter pilot, and a dead man. His presence is the only physical thread that binds the tales together – but symbolises the desire or vessel propelling each protagonist.
To those who danced to the tune of Lanthimos’ most recent crowd-pleasers, Kinds of Kindness is a glass of cold water thrown in the face. It reminds those only in tune with McNamara’s recent pithy wit that a Yorgos film can become even more deviant when he’s paired up with Filippou. It is a sobering reminder of why he was and still is a trailblazer for Greece’s postmodern ‘Greek Weird Wave’ movement. He and Filippou love to explore power, sexual taboo, inhuman speech, and expertly framed scenarios of the bizarre, using a balance of absurdist humour and unorthodox drama. All that is displayed here, even if the structure sometimes feels too manufactured and indulgent.
While it will struggle to find a massive audience outside those in tune with Lanthimos’ weirder tempos, this ambitious work captures humanity’s more pitiful malaise. Jerskin Fendrix’s peculiar and creeping score adds to the unsettling feeling that parades each character’s motivations. Pairing it with Robbie Ryan’s uneasy cinematography makes it utterly absorbent in its surrealism. It will likely tire, irk, and question you, but it will most likely make you giggle and frown simultaneously.
Whether you are laughing, crying, or turning away from the insanity of Kinds of Kindness, we all desire to be loved—and Yorgos Lanthimos does not care about the limits of how far we’re willing to go to find it.
