Kinds of Kindness

Yorgos Lanthimos's Kinds of Kindness, his follow-up to his Oscar-winning Poor Things, has just come to a theater near me. Let's see if I can describe this nearly three-hour film succinctly.

Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou wrote the film as a "Triptych Fable" consisting of three segments. They share a combined company of Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau, Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, and Yorgos Stefanakos, the last of whom appears in some form during each segment as the living MacGuffin "R.M.F."

The Death of R.M.F.: Robert Fletcher (Plemons) is a corporate drone whose personal life is dictated by his boss, Raymond (Dafoe). Robert draws the line when Raymond orders him to kill R.M.F. by car crash. His good life quickly falls apart, but he finds some help in the grim task with Rita (Stone).

This is the most visually appealing of the three segments. The film was shot in New Orleans, and there's a stunning nighttime shot of the city in neon courtesy of cinematographer Robbie Ryan. The production design by Anthony Gasparro is highlighted by Raymond's claustrophobic office and his splendorous mansion. And while the film is rather long, editor Yorgos Mavropsaridis perfectly builds up tension before each quick display of vehicular violence.

The film is about doormats content with being doormats. Robert is such a doormat that he's monotone when he's trying to be self-assertive. It's probably the funniest thing in this extremely dark comedy, other than a weird tangent about dogs in the next segment. But it's hard to get invested when Robert tries to get back into Raymond's good graces after the latter "frees" him. His compliance with Raymond's demands to drug his wife, Sarah (Chau) into infertility, makes it harder to like him. Let's move on to the next segments.

R.M.F. is Flying centers the least on R.M.F., other than an easy-to-miss cameo. It instead involves Daniel (Plemons), a police officer whose marine biologist wife, Liz (Stone), has just been rescued after she was lost at sea. But he slowly suspects that "Liz" is actually an imposter. He quickly goes mad from his paranoia. That's as about as family friendly as I can phrase it.

The level of tension here is astounding. You can actually feel Daniel's sanity crumble as Liz exhibits contradictory behavior. How so? Before, she detested chocolate, but she goes for a chocolate cake once she gets home. The horror! It gets to actual horror when Daniel and his partner, Neil (Athie), make a traffic stop that turns into a bizarre case of police brutality. Things get worse from then on, and nothing that the milquetoast Dr. Evans (Nathan Mulligan) says can assure us. By then, you'll realize that this is a portrait of an abusive marriage, which is made clear when Liz willingly obliges Daniel's nauseating requests. "Isn't it wonderful?" as the film asks repeatedly.

R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich has cultists Andrew & Emily (Plemons & Stone) search for a specific woman who can raise the dead. A woman named Rebecca points them into the direction of her veterinarian twin sister, Ruth (Qualley plays both twins). The Chosen One is supposed to have a twin sister, and Emily saw Rebecca in a dream. So, ergo, Ruth's the One. But things are complicated when Emily's estranged husband, Joseph (Alwyn), comes back into her life. There's also the requirement that the Chosen One's twin sister needs to be dead. For reasons.

R.M.F. maybe in the title, as his corpse shows up later, but this is Emily's story. She's quite sympathetic as she tries to connect with her family despite the confines of the cult (Dafoe & Chau are the leaders, Omi & AKA). She's quite pitiful, almost amusingly so, when the cult excommunicates her for "impurity." But despite her attempts to rejoin them, which involves human and animal cruelty, she shows her self-assertiveness when she disavows Joseph for his abusiveness. See, there is some light in this tunnel. That tunnel is dimmed by the finale's darkly amusing punchline.

This might be a film you'll want to see to believe, that is, if you enjoy seeing a cast of doormats getting stomped on for 164-minutes. If not, then you've got your options both on streaming and in theatres. I think that about sums this movie up. Stay tuned for the next review.