Filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos hasn’t made the world wait long for the follow-up to his engrossing and thought-provoking “Poor Things,” a nominee earlier this year for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Going into wide release this week, not quite seven months after “Poor Things” introduced the world to Emma Stone’s unforgettable Bella Baxter, the director’s intriguing, entrancing and, at times, confounding “Kinds of Kindness” is said to have been shot quickly during the lengthy post-production phase of its visually elaborate predecessor.
‘Poor Things’ review: Emma Stone unforgettable in Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest
A “triptych fable,” “Kinds of Kindness” boasts many of the same actors — among them, not surprisingly, is Stone, who deservedly won the Oscar for Best Actress for “Poor Things” for her spectacular and fearless performance — playing different characters in its three stories.
To say this trio of tales is “loosely connected” is a bit generous, although Yorgos Stefanakos’ R.M.F. is a titular figure — but also only so relevant narratively — in each.
One would expect there to be a greater thematic thread tying together “The Death of R.M.F.,” “R.M.F. Is Flying” and “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” but, at least on initial viewing, that connective tissue is pretty thin. In each, at least one character is some degree of desperate to please at least one other character who is some degree of controlling — and, more often not, one of the latter figures is portrayed by fellow “Things” alum Willem Dafoe (“The Florida Project”). Given the gifts of Lanthimos, there surely is more metaphorical meat on the bone to be chewed upon during and after a repeat viewing.
Know, however, that “Kinds of Kindness” is co-written by Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou, the latter a collaborator on the former’s more self-indulgent (if still radically interesting) films, including “The Lobster” (2015) and “The Killing of the Sacred Deer,” in which the pair’s absurdist leanings sometimes got the better of them. (Nowhere to be found in the credits here is writer Tony McNamara, who helped shape “Poor Thing” and Lanthimos’ other unquestionably terrific — and Oscar-nominated — film, 2018’s “The Favourite.”)
It comes as no shock, then, that “Kinds of Kindness" sometimes, perhaps even often, feels like it's being absurd because … well, just because.
That said, it also is a film that, with every scene, has you hanging on with great interest to see what will come next. As a result, it is a two-and-a-half-hour-plus endeavor that goes by remarkably quickly. Whatever its sins, stagnation isn’t one of them.
Stone, appropriately, receives top billing, but Jesse Plemons gets at least a bit more time within the frame.
That’s mainly because while the two are co-leads in the subsequent acts, Stone is a supporting player in “The Death of R.M.F.” Plemons is front and center as Robert, who doesn’t just work for Dafoe’s Raymond but long has been engaged in a bizarre agreement with him. Raymond dictates areas of Robert’s life from his weight — the former is frustrated by the latter appearing to have lost weight, as he finds thin men to be ridiculous — to his intimacy and more with his wife, Sarah (Hong Chau, “The Menu,” “The Whale”). This power dynamic is upset when Raymond finally asks too much of Robert, with Robert subsequently seeing Stone’s Rita as a means to an end.
Next comes “R.M.F. Is Flying,” in which police officer Daniel (Plemons) is distraught because his beloved wife, Liz (Stone), has been lost at sea. When she is found alive and returns to him, Daniel believes something is amiss, Liz enjoying things — chocolate and cigarettes among them — she didn’t previously and, more mysteriously, not fitting comfortably into her shoes. While some around him believe Daniel to be having a psychotic event, he sets about proving his theory.
Lastly, we get “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” which sees Stone’s Emily and Plemons’ Andrew as members of a spiritual cult led by Dafoe’s Omi and Chau’s Aka. Omi and Aka, who bless the group’s all-important “uncontaminated” water with their tears, regularly dispatch Emily and Andrew on missions to search for a figure to fulfill a prophecy of a female twin who can raise the dead.
We’ve kept things vague — believe it or not, it’s all even stranger than it sounds — purposefully because, again, revelations along the way comprise much of the enjoyment “Kinds of Kindness” has to offer.
It also offers fine supporting work from Margaret Qualley (“Poor Things,” “Drive-Away Dolls”), Mamoudou Athie (“Elemental,” “The Burial”) and Joe Alwyn (“The Favourite,” “Catherine Called Birdy”) in each of the three parts.
‘Drive-Away Dolls’ review: Coen brother’s ‘Pulp’-y, sex-forward romp mostly fun
Plemons (“Power of the Dog,” “Killers of the Flower Moon”), who seems almost as if he’s in more films than he isn’t these days, is his usual dependable self and oddly likable even when the person he’s playing isn’t.
Meanwhile, Stone — also an Academy Award winner for 2017’s “La La Land” and a nominee for 2015’s “Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)” and “The Favourite” — is sensational again. There may be no Oscar in her future for her work here, but with the energy and personality she brings to each, her character is the most interesting thing on screen in any scene she’s in, which is saying something given some of the happenings in “Kinds of Kindness.”
Stone won’t be enough to keep some viewers from becoming turned off by “Kinds of Kindness.” It’s weird, to be sure, sometimes sexually gratuitous, often dark, occasionally violent and longer than the average movie. As such, it simply won’t fit the tastes of some folks.
Poor things.
‘Kinds of Kindness’
Where: Theaters.
When: June 28.
Rated: R for strong/disturbing violent content, strong sexual content, full nudity and language.
Runtime: 2 hours, 44 minutes.
Stars (of four): 3.
