Kinds of Kindness, the latest film from provocative and controversial director Yorgos Lanthimos, is composed of three stories.
The Death of R.M.F.
Robert is a well-paid guy who gives literally everything to his wealthy and paternalistic boss. But after you give control of your every waking moment—your rising and sleeping, your eating habits and booze consumption, your daily calendar, your sexual interactions—how do you know when you’ve crossed that bright red line? Is murder too far?
R.M.F. Is Flying
Daniel is a mourning police officer whose wife Liz went missing in a potentially deadly accident at sea. But when Liz suddenly shows up, she’s well fed and surprisingly healthy. What exactly did she eat on that deserted little island where her compatriots died? Daniel finds himself oddly less than joyous at her return. Liz is so different. And now she eats chocolate, she smokes—things she never used to do. In fact, Daniel’s pretty sure that this Liz isn’t his Liz at all.
R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich
Emily and Andrew are looking for a very special person. They need to find a certain twin, someone who survived after their twin sibling met a tragic end. Oh, and there’s one other little thing: The twin must have the power to magically raise the dead. If Emily and Andrew can find this transcendent person, they’ll be lauded by the water-worshipping sex cult they’re members of.
In R.M.F. Is Flying, Daniel’s police officer partner is a good man who gives up his time in an effort to help his emotionally ailing partner.
Two different women recite this line, “Take life from my hands, and open your eyes,” over a corpse. In one case, the corpse regains life. That particular chanter has a black magic-like power to raise the dead. In that story, Emily also sprinkles what she considers to be holy water on someone’s bed.
Throughout the movie we see a variety of male and female characters kissing and having sex. For instance: We see two men kiss. And it’s implied that a man has sex with a male and female couple. (We see them embracing.) We also see two married couples swapping partners and copulating in a homemade sex tape (which includes breast and rear nudity, as well as realistic sounds and movements).
A man walks around in very skimpy and revealing underwear. He lays on a bed, exposing his genitals. Long camera shots capture different women in full-frontal nudity. A man listens to a pair of sex-cult members having loud intercourse. Other women wear skimpy underwear or a short silky robe as their only covering. A woman wears a partially unbuttoned shirt with no bra.
A man accuses someone of seducing and having sex with his wife. A woman reaches out to grab her police officer husband’s crotch. She then hits him with his own billy club and sucks it seductively. Someone suggests that a group of people have sex together. A group of sex-cult members kiss each other quite graphically.
Still more sexual content shows up as well.
A speeding car crashes into a tree, ejecting one passenger (in bloody, flesh-rending fashion) through the front window. A woman cuts off her own finger and fries it for her husband to eat. She also cuts out her own liver in a similar attempt and bleeds out in a pool of blood. We see a woman chewing on the bloody flesh and sinew of someone’s leg.
A man purposely breaks his own foot by aggressively kicking a wall. We see the heavily bruised and twisted results. Someone is in a car crash, leaving that person with cuts and wounds on the brow and face.
A guy runs over an unconscious and prone victim with his car, repeatedly, causing a gory mess. A woman learns that her miscarriages were chemically induced by her husband. (We’re shown a toilet bowl holding the bloody aftermath.)
A police officer shoots a man’s hand and then licks the open, bleeding wound. A woman repeatedly punches herself in the face and stomach until she miscarries. Someone jumps into an empty pool twice. The first time the leap results in a bloody wound on her head. Years later, the second attempt leaves her limbs broken and twisted as she bleeds out.
Someone catches a stray dog and cuts its leg open with a knife. A vet then glues the cleaned gash back together. A woman is drugged, stripped and raped. (The camera watches as she’s violated.) A man is paid to be hit by another vehicle. The man who paid him says that the victim is willing to die if that’s the end result. Two different women are forced to stay in an overheated steam room until they pass out.
There are 15 f-words in the dialogue.
Characters drink wine and mixed drinks throughout the movie. A man mixes a drug in with a drink he’s preparing for a young woman. She gets sick and then passes out. Another man secretly gives his wife a drug that causes a miscarriage.
Someone smokes cigarettes. A man is obviously stoned in one scene.
After being given a drug, a woman vomits on a guy’s shoe. He then wipes off her mouth and kisses her. People lie, steal and cheat.
Kinds of Kindness is made up of a triad of short films all cast with the same ensemble group of actors. And they are, without a doubt, fearlessly dedicated to their craft. Each one immerses himself or herself in their given roles with a fevered passion.
These men and woman are so zealous in their thespian expressions, in fact, that you may watch this odd cinematic concoction and actually be tempted to think there’s some hidden artistic meaning behind the inscrutable mix. I mean, it’s comparable to a modern painter passionately smearing feces on a canvas. That must have some meaning behind it, right?
Sometimes, however, it’s just feces.
The three gossamer-thread connected plays are designed to shock as they careen between bizarre, absurd and openly perverse imagery. There’s sadism; murder; pornographic coupling; cannibalism; suicide; drug-induced rape; foul profanity; and a whole lot of insane people in this collection of scenes.
In fact, you could say that every character in this absurdist movie is completely unhinged by the controlling corruptions in the world around them. And perhaps that’s the true link between all three short films: The twisted nature of a godless world.
Given writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos success with last year’s Best Picture winner Poor Things (another extremely explicit movie starring Emma Stone), many people may well find themselves exposed to yet another dose of this director’s deep infatuation with macabre sensuality. But Lanthimos’ latest film contains, frankly, no kindness for audiences.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
