In KINDS OF KINDNESS (2024), people confuse love and control in varying extremes, ironically sacrificing themselves in whole or part to complete themselves. It’s powerfully provocative, though as with other films by Yorgos Yanthimos (THE LOBSTER, POOR THINGS, etc.), emotional distance permeates the whole, whether intentional or not, that always denies me real empathy for the characters. Overall, I liked it a lot, for its bold originality and outright rejection of catering to expectations if for nothing else.
The movie is made up of three stories, each with different roles played by the same stellar cast that includes Willem Defoe, Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and other great actors. Each story takes on the theme of love and the need to be loved, taken to extremes of debasement. I advise knowing as little as possible before you watch, so I’ll just give a quick plot description for my favorite of the three, which is about a woman who left her family to join a sex cult and is now searching for an unknown spiritual leader who can raise the dead. Each premise is killer stuff.
The things people do to each other and allow being done or do to themselves for connection is provocative and often depraved, both sad and absurdly funny at the same time. When I write horror fiction, I’m often drawn to exploring themes inverting good into evil by showing it in its extreme. Yanthimos does this really well in this film; again, it is boldly original. At the same time, his movies often strike me as overly artsy and cold, and while my brain often ends up extremely tickled, my heart doesn’t get very invested. A part of this is the dialogue, which is deliberately stilted, full of niceties and polite phrasing. This appears intended to contrast the forms of kindness to the dark potential of its content, but I had a hard time empathizing with anyone–a tall order, I know, when a character wants to do something horrible to please a horrible person who is controlling them, but that’s what good stories do, they put you right in their shoes. The film itself comes across as tightly controlled, making me think it might have been interesting to see it less so, more like its off-the-hook trailer.
Anyway, I liked KINDS OF KINDNESS a lot for its originality, ideas, and edgy psychological horror, and I’d heartily recommend to you if you value any of those things in a film and want to see something you haven’t seen many times before. While I wouldn’t call myself a fan of Yanthimos’s work, I guess I am enough of one to be certain to catch his next movie. His work is absolutely fearless.
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