Kinds of Kindness (2024)
July 14, 2024 8:15 PM - Subscribe
A man seeks to break free from his predetermined path, a cop questions his wife's demeanor after her return from a supposed drowning, and a woman searches for an extraordinary individual prophesied to become a renowned spiritual guide.
Kinds of Kindness is a triptych fable, following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.
Nadine Whitney: Kinds of Kindness by its very nature is both provocative and exhausting. Each section presents an aspect of human society; work, marriage, and faith and pushes them into a dark satirical mirror (one shot by Robbie Ryan and scored by Jerskin Fendrix). Lanthimos gives no quarter in his dissection of contemporary anxiety. His world is a bleak carnival where extremities abound, but it is also this world.
The structure of the work is its main downfall. There are two features and a short masquerading as an anthology. The first and last chapters both dangle fascinating concepts which don’t go as far as they must to flesh out the narratives. Thus, there is a sense of raggedy offcuts thrown together in haste instead of a whole.
Lanthimos gets two incredible performances out of Plemons who continues to impress with his ability to merge completely into a character to the point where it is possible to forget that you just watched him forty-five minutes ago playing someone utterly different.
For a certain generation of film fans there are directors whose work is a pre and post experience. There is pre Michael Haneke, Gregg Araki, Todd Solondz, Claire Denis, et. al. Yorgos Lanthimos belongs in the category of filmmakers who is known in the popular imagination as a ‘redefining force’. They carve their own path, and the audience can walk it or not. The least you can expect is that even their lesser films will have a recognisable spark.
Wenlei Ma: Kinds of Kindness belongs in the more enigmatic and surreal half of Lanthimos’s oeuvre. And like those titles, including Dogtooth, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, he wrote them with Efthimis Filippou.
Lanthimos’ two most recent films, The Favourite and Poor Things, were collaborations with Australian scribe Tony McNamara, and there’s a warmth and accessibility not present in the others.
Kinds of Kindness, like the other works from Lanthimos and Filippou’s partnership, is spikier, intentionally mannered, and far more challenging. But at least when you’re squirming, you know you’re not bored.
Raquel Stecher: Kinds of Kindness had a lot to offer. Close up shots in which parts of the body obscured make for some stunning imagery. Disruptive sound is used to great effect including the off-key playing of a piano, often times just the banging of one single key, or the use of a cell phone ringing followed by static as used in the second story. In the last of the three stories, an editing technique is used that cuts away to another shot before the audience feels ready to move on to a new visual. Plemons, Stone, Qualley, Chau, Dafoe, Athie make for a solid cast and I hope they’ll all continue to collaborate with Lanthimos. I just hope that Hunter Schafer will be considered for a bigger part in a future film.
The 2 hour and 45 minute time frame might be a drag for some. While watching it in a theater is ideal, the movie’s episodic style can make for three enjoyable movies at around an hour each.
Kinds of Kindness is delightfully twisted
Trailer
Kinds of Kindness is a triptych fable, following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.
Nadine Whitney: Kinds of Kindness by its very nature is both provocative and exhausting. Each section presents an aspect of human society; work, marriage, and faith and pushes them into a dark satirical mirror (one shot by Robbie Ryan and scored by Jerskin Fendrix). Lanthimos gives no quarter in his dissection of contemporary anxiety. His world is a bleak carnival where extremities abound, but it is also this world.
The structure of the work is its main downfall. There are two features and a short masquerading as an anthology. The first and last chapters both dangle fascinating concepts which don’t go as far as they must to flesh out the narratives. Thus, there is a sense of raggedy offcuts thrown together in haste instead of a whole.
Lanthimos gets two incredible performances out of Plemons who continues to impress with his ability to merge completely into a character to the point where it is possible to forget that you just watched him forty-five minutes ago playing someone utterly different.
For a certain generation of film fans there are directors whose work is a pre and post experience. There is pre Michael Haneke, Gregg Araki, Todd Solondz, Claire Denis, et. al. Yorgos Lanthimos belongs in the category of filmmakers who is known in the popular imagination as a ‘redefining force’. They carve their own path, and the audience can walk it or not. The least you can expect is that even their lesser films will have a recognisable spark.
Wenlei Ma: Kinds of Kindness belongs in the more enigmatic and surreal half of Lanthimos’s oeuvre. And like those titles, including Dogtooth, The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, he wrote them with Efthimis Filippou.
Lanthimos’ two most recent films, The Favourite and Poor Things, were collaborations with Australian scribe Tony McNamara, and there’s a warmth and accessibility not present in the others.
Kinds of Kindness, like the other works from Lanthimos and Filippou’s partnership, is spikier, intentionally mannered, and far more challenging. But at least when you’re squirming, you know you’re not bored.
Raquel Stecher: Kinds of Kindness had a lot to offer. Close up shots in which parts of the body obscured make for some stunning imagery. Disruptive sound is used to great effect including the off-key playing of a piano, often times just the banging of one single key, or the use of a cell phone ringing followed by static as used in the second story. In the last of the three stories, an editing technique is used that cuts away to another shot before the audience feels ready to move on to a new visual. Plemons, Stone, Qualley, Chau, Dafoe, Athie make for a solid cast and I hope they’ll all continue to collaborate with Lanthimos. I just hope that Hunter Schafer will be considered for a bigger part in a future film.
The 2 hour and 45 minute time frame might be a drag for some. While watching it in a theater is ideal, the movie’s episodic style can make for three enjoyable movies at around an hour each.
Kinds of Kindness is delightfully twisted
Trailer
American Humane monitored some of the animal action.I never noticed this exact language in movie credits before. The "monitored some" and "in those scenes" qualifications I mean.
No animals were harmed ® in those scenes.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 4:56 PM on September 1
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posted by Carillon at 8:19 PM on July 14 [2 favorites]