Kinds of Kindness (2024)

This latest effort from the quirky imagination of Yorgos Lanthimos employs the services of Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe in varying roles across three short stories that question just about every aspect of human behaviour and attitudes. The first (my favourite) sees Plemons as "Robert". He is an outwardly professional man who lives with is wife "Sarah" (Hong Chau) and works for "Raymond" (Dafoe). He has just recovered from a very slight car accident - and on meeting with his boss we discover a little more of just what that was about and of the somewhat curious nature, and dependencies, of their relationship. The second didn't engage with me so well as cop Plemons is "Daniel" struggling to deal with the loss of his wife "Liz" at sea. When she turns up somewhat unexpectedly, she appears completely different somehow and some fairly ghastly sacrifices are soon necessary before anyone can see any light at the end of this emotional maelstrom of a tunnel. Finally, the two share the leads more looking for the ideal candidate for a cult run by "Omi" (Dafoe). Candidate for what? Well so long as she is the right weight and her breasts are equidistant from each other and her navel, then it'd doesn't seem to matter... Thing is, she has an estranged husband (Joe Alwyn) and a daughter who are keen to have her back - and he is prepared to use some fairly ghastly methods to see she is "contaminated". The scenarios are quite hard to describe. They are surreal in places, brutal in others - but I found rarely entertaining. We are presented with the façades of characterisations but it's the questions their escapades pose to us that is more interesting. What might we do to satiate our cravings for love, affection and a sense of feeling needed? How easily led we can be. The things a person will do for a tennis racket smashed by John McEnroe in 1984! It's not that it blurs lines of sexuality. There aren't any. It's sexually fluid and frequently presents us with an environment where people behave according to instinct and not societal morals. Dafoe takes the acting plaudits for me, his ownership of his roles is unnervingly creepy at times. Stone, though, seems to be resurrecting her "Pretty Little Things" (2023) style of characteristic (lots of racing around taking short steps) and Plemons is adequate enough, but somewhat just a little too anodyne with roles that ought to have taken us more by the scruff of the neck. It also didn't really resonate with me as a comedy either. I could see where the humourous elements were supposed to be but I prefer my humour more subtle - these punches just didn't land well enough. It's a long old watch, and though at times I did enjoy it, I doubt I'd bother again.