Kinds Of Kindness Review: Lanthimos' Poor Things Follow-Up Is Weird & Compelling [CANNES 2024]

Yorgos Lanthimos has made two critically acclaimed hits in a row ("The Favourite" and "Poor Things," respectively), both of which were well-received among mainstream audiences. So some viewers may have forgotten the type of director he really is deep down in his bones: a stone cold freak — and we mean that in the best possible way. "Kinds of Kindness" sees him go back to his roots with a trio of loosely interconnected shorts, with the same cast featured in different roles in each story. They're all varying degrees of odd, disturbing, and darkly comedic, although general audiences may not fall in love as quickly as they did with his other recent films. But if nothing else, "Kinds of Kindness" features three show-stopping performances from Jesse Plemons, giving Lanthimos a new muse to champion.

In the first of the three stories, "The Death of R.M.F.," Plemons plays Robert, an office worker who is in a long-standing submissive relationship with his boss, Raymond (Willem Dafoe), to the extent that he dictates every decision Robert makes, from the small to the life-altering. All of this is fine with Robert. But when Robert objects to one of Raymond's more outrageous requests, the older man drops him like a bad habit, proclaiming him "free" — only Robert isn't thrilled with the idea of being back in charge of his own life, and goes to extreme lengths to get him back.

The second features Plemons as a police officer whose marine biologist wife Liz (Emma Stone) has gone missing during an expedition — but when she returns, he's not convinced she's the same woman she once was. Lastly, we follow members of a sex cult (Stone and Plemons) in their quest to track down a young woman with the power to raise the dead, so that they may worship her.

Yorgos Lanthimos' approach of creating a self-contained anthology is an interesting one, even if ultimately it's a mixed bag. It allows him the creative freedom of exploring different narratives that may not merit a feature-length film on their own, but it also results in — by necessity — one of the most unfocused works he's produced in some time. Perhaps it's because the thread connecting these three stories always lies tantalizingly out of reach, keeping audiences at an arm's length from the material on an emotional level. Acts of love and cruelty are intermingled throughout each story, merging and blending into one mass of generosity and manipulation, self-sacrifice and self-harm, violence and reverence.

The first is probably the strongest of the three, from both a narrative and performance perspective. Jesse Plemons digs deep to access extreme levels of vulnerability and desperation, making himself pathetic at the feet of Willem Dafoe's manipulative Raymond. The two have a bizarre sort of intimacy, even as Raymond has successfully made his lover entirely helpless in the world, unable to choose a simple drink at a restaurant for himself and forcing a bartender to step into Raymond's role as his designated decider.

The second feels the most like a "Twilight Zone" episode, with man getting his greatest wish — having his beloved wife returned to him — only to descend into paranoia. The final story is perhaps the most fully-formed, with extensive world-building both within the cult run by Aka and Oni (Hong Chau and Dafoe) and the personal life of Emily (Emma Stone), one of its most devoted members who is caught between her love for them and her inability to fully leave behind her young daughter. If anything, this is the one that could have best survived as its own full-length film, had Lanthimos desired to mine it further.

Aside from the final story, in which Emma Stone takes on the central role, this entire anthology series is an act of supreme faith in Jesse Plemons as a performer. He is the emotional anchor throughout the majority of "Kinds of Kindness," and at no point is he anything less than entirely committed to the vision of the piece. Considering the fact that this is the first collaboration between Plemons and Yorgos Lanthimos, it speaks to the rapport that the director is so frequently able to build with his actors. It's clear that they have such a high level of trust that it allows them to make bold performance choices, as we've seen before with Stone. Although Plemons may not become such a frequent collaborator with Lanthimos as Stone has been recently (only time will tell), they bring out the best in each other.

"Kinds of Kindness" might not be Lanthimos' most cohesive or narratively satisfying film, nor is it likely to become an audience favorite like some of his latest works. Despite the title's focus on kindness, "Kinds of Kindness" doesn't seem overly concerned with being liked, and certainly not with being a pleasant viewing experience. Lanthimos has always sought to find the humor in discomfort, relishing a twinge of the grotesque that has made his less mainstream works divisive among audiences. Like it, love it, or hate it, Lanthimos always does Lanthimos, and "Kinds of Kindness" is the purest example of this we've seen in a while.

"Kinds of Kindness" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, and will hit theaters on June 21.