Kinds Of Kindness – Review

Cert – 18, Run-time – 2 hours 44 minutes, Director – Yorgos Lanthimos

Three separate stories of relationships being tested and pulled in different directions whilst mysteries as to their true forms unfold

Kinds Of Kindness treads the line of diving into horror in almost every frame. Co-writer (alongside Efthimis Filippou) and director Yorgos Lanthimos could so easily steer back into the excruciatingly tense dead-pan terror of Killing Of A Sacred Deer and yet chooses not to. Instead, his anthology feature stays firmly in the dramatic while tinged with enough horror adjacent ideas so as to bring in the light tension, occasional mystery and hints of Lynchian tonality.

Split into three parts the first story feels like David Cronenberg’s Crash meets The Magic Christian once everyone no longer needs Peter Sellers’ money. Follow that with a tale of a wife (Emma Stone) who returns to her husband (Jesse Plemons) with a number of differences after having gone missing, a la an Invasion Of The Body Snatchers or tale of possession, and a yarn following direct involvement in a cult and there’s a good deal of darkness on display. Much of this is heightened by the ambiguity which remains present throughout. Not as to the link, but simply the fact that not every detail in each story needs, or wants, explanation.

Sometimes characters are trying to work out mysteries for themselves, such as the aforementioned uncertain returning face, others it’s just how certain relationships work. Especially when they seem so friendly in the face of one person seemingly having been distant for quite some time due to having been involved with a cult and being given a casually friendly greeting on the doorstep by husband and daughter.

At no point does Lanthimos interfere with the proceedings. While you can feel him willing characters on or watching with glee in his previous films, such as Poor Things just a few months ago, here the camera sits, watches and follows. Things feel as if they naturally pan out in the manner in which they would in this off-filter world. Fleshing out the small details and the performances which show the confliction, regret and stresses the characters face in the face of their relationships. Willem Dafoe spits away Plemons as he turns away from his former employee, or perhaps puppet or stooge, after he’s failed to appease the man who has helped form his life as it is. Plemons’ Robert begins to struggle and find himself trying to retrace steps with markings no longer present. He becomes an increasingly lost figure who remains fascinating to watch as the darkness of his controlled world and life becomes ever more apparent.

A handful of faces crop up throughout to tell each story. With a cast led by Stone, Plemons, Dafoe and Margaret Qualley all on top form, we also see strong turns from Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie and a lesser-used Joe Alwyn. Each understanding the slightly twisted world that everything takes place in. Whether it’s the same one or different, if everything is connected by one thing or multiple, or not at all, is down to the viewer. Lanthimos leads a lot open, and not just because of the open mysteries held within each strand with its own core mystery unravelling throughout the 50-minute-or-so narrative.

None of the stories outstay their welcome, and at just under three hours the film as a whole manages to just about hold its run-time, if bordering on feeling overlong. In fact, thanks to the consistent tone and style throughout, although with different styles of threat, slight fear and dysphoria for the characters, the film avoids a potential anthology stumbling block of feeling too distant or segmented for things to properly flow. Instead the overall flow and style works, and there’s a good deal to be invested in within the world and the ways in which it treats the central characters. All with an air of potential rewatchability to find even more fascination in the behaviours and askew meanings and warpings of kindness that are on display.

A set of excellent performances bring out the horror-tinted darkness in the dramas which Lanthimos observes. There’s strong interest as you watch the mysteries and ambiguities pan out in and amongst the off-kilter world and behaviours within it.