Five Cent Cine: Kinds of Kindness

Kinds of Kindness ★★1/2 (out of 4 stars)

Three not-so-easy pieces

After achieving more than modest success with “Poor Things” (2023, nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, won the Oscar for Best Actress for Emma Stone), Yorgos Lanthimos pushed the limits and put our patience to tough test with “Kinds of Kindness,” 3 stories (and almost 3 hours) that have little to do with kindness and a lot to do with Lanthimos’ obsession with sado-masochism, a theme introduced in the credits opening by a car radio blaring “Sweet Dreams” by Eurythmics (Are Made of This): “Some of them want to mistreat you, some of them want to be mistreated.” Each of the stories has its own end credits, probably to isolate them from each other; and all use the same set of actors (although playing different roles), chief among them Stone, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Plemons (who won the Best Actor award at Cannes for this film), Margaret Qualley (also in “Poor Things”) and Hong. Chau (nominated for an Oscar for “The Whale” in 2022).

Lanthimos’ obsession goes well beyond the stereotype of sexual sado-masochism with leather clothes, whips and pain. In Story 1 – “The Death of RMF” – Raymond (Dafoe) is a narcissistic tyrant, dictating every aspect, no matter how small, of Robert’s (Plemons) life, whether it’s juice fruit for breakfast, the time to make love or the requirement. Robert rams a van at high speed into a BMW sedan occupied by the mysterious character RMF. Inexplicably (Lanthimos cares little for causality), Robert is a willing participant who enjoys being controlled and dominated, and whose life is scheduled in detail.

In Story 3 – “RMF Eats a Sandwich” (you’ll have to watch the end credits to see it) – Dafoe plays a similar dominator, Omi, the leader of a cult who is looking to find a wife who must be a virgin. , has a dead twin, has nipples spaced far apart, and is capable of resurrecting the dead. In the stomach-churning story 2 – “RMF Is Flying” – the role of sadist is filled by Plemons, a paranoid and ultimately demonic cop who is convinced that his wife (Stone) is not really his wife, Liz, and insists that she performs disgusting acts that will make you turn away or turn against Lanthimos. Story 2 is a mini-horror film.

Drawing on the parent/child experience – and on films like “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” (1989) – food is central to the development of the Lanthimos paradigm of power and submission. Plemons’ character in story 1 learns that he is too thin and that food is being forced on him. Despite a reduced role in Story 2, Dafoe’s George tells a child eating a piece of fruit, “You’ve had enough.” There’s watering rationing (Story 3), a raw steak scene and one with liver, evoking “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) and other “tasteless” films with a high “ick” factor . Kinky sex also runs through all three stories.

In all of the stories, Stone’s character has no semblance of free will, much like Plemons’. Playing Rita in Story 1, Stone replaces Robert as Raymond’s lackey; as Emily in story 3, she is a helpless, even pitiful, follower of the cult of Omi, and to add insult to injury, she is drugged and raped by her not-so-ex-husband; and in story 2 (again, inexplicably – her actions go far beyond a penchant for masochism), she meekly rapes and defiles his body.

Lanthimos has explored issues of control in all of his recent films. In “The Favorite” (2018), Stone featured prominently as a new court servant who takes control of the queen. But “Kinds of Kindness” operates in the stratosphere of domination and manipulation. His scary quotient is up there with his “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” (2017, screenplay co-written by Efthimis Filippou, as is this one), with Barry Keoghan taking control of a family and orchestrating a dilemma and an unthinkable “solution”. ” Unlike “Poor Things,” which managed to merge the horrific (Dafoe as the mad scientist, creating his own monster) with humor, defiance and rebellion, this latest effort is never funny, and his only hint of rebellion is Robert’s initial refusal to carry out Raymond’s blatant and murderous directive. The control, the crudeness, the perversity, it all seems gratuitous.

One can’t help but wonder if Lanthimos isn’t as devious as Stone in “The Favorite”, Keoghan in “Sacred Deer” and Dafoe in “Poor Things” and now in “Kinds of Kindness”: putting pressure, manipulate, exploit. , threatening and insulting its audience, pushing moviegoers to the brink with its mix of horror and sadism, wondering if they will have the courage – the free will, the self-determination, the moxie – to respond to the filmmaker, say that’s enough. Get up from their seat and leave.

Date: 2024

Stars: 2.5 (out of 4)

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos

Starring: Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau

Country: United Kingdom, Ireland (filmed in New Orleans)

French language

Duration: 164 minutes

Other awards: A win (Best Actor at Cannes for Plemons) and 2 other nominations (including Lanthimos for the Palme d’Or at Cannes) to date.

Availability: Released theatrically in the US and UK on June 21, 2024; no streaming information at this time. See JustWatch here for future streaming availability.

Main image: Raymond (Willem Dafoe) and Vivian (Margaret Qualley) may look like ordinary rich people, but they are not at all.

See all Five Cent Cine reviews written by 2 film critics