Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2024, Ireland/UK/USA/Greece)

Kinds of Kindness is the latest film from Yorgos Lanthimos (his new film Bugonia will be released later this year). Following the success of Poor Things and The Favourite, both collaborations with Tony McNamara, Kinds of Kindness represents a return to Lanthimos’s roots and a reunion with co-writer Efthimis Filippou. Lanthimos is in the rare and enviable position of a modern auteur (much like Guadagnino) whose success and popularity with actors has allowed him a great deal of freedom on certain projects.

Kinds of Kindness is not only a bizarre black-comedy, it is also an anthology. The anthology film has been a somewhat dying breed. This anthology is unique in that each of the three segments shares the same cast, albeit in different roles. Clocking in at almost three hours, each segment has enough substance to stand on its own, and one can see this also working as a limited series.

The segments cover different thematic ground, but all seem to explore themes of power and control. The most memorable and strongly constructed segment is the first - “The Death of R.M.F.” - wherein Jesse Plemons plays a man whose entire life is orchestrated by a sinister figure played by Willem Dafoe. Plemons is exceptionally well-suited to the material, and he seems to have a great ear for Lanthimos’s off-kilter dialogue. The variety of humor is particularly unique, and some of the lines are delivered in a very humorous way.

The latter two segments - “R.M.F. Is Flying” and “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich” - also have their strengths, although they are weaker on the whole than the first segment. If there is one major flaw with Kinds of Kindness, it is the pacing. Even though it is three segments, the film does tend to drag in parts. It might have been better as three half-hour segments.

6/10