Search - Kinds Of Kindness - DVD on DVD

B.J. W. (analogkid01) from CHICAGO, IL
Reviewed on 7/5/2025...

This is a review of the new Yorgos Lanthimos film, "Kinds of Kindness." However, I'm going to pivot to the comparison/sub-review first.

In 1994, director Terry Zwigoff made "Crumb," an incredibly insightful bio-documentary about cult cartoonist Robert Crumb. In one revealing sequence in the film, Crumb talks about the creative process behind one particularly perverse comic he drew. He mentions how he did not know where the inspiration was coming from, where the story in the comic was going, or why he was even drawing the comic in the first place. His wife, however, urged him to keep going with it, saying "This is just something that's in you and needs to get out on paper."

(And if you saw the comic in question, you'd question the wife's sanity in supporting him. But that's another review for another day.)

I kept thinking about this sequence in Crumb while watching "Kinds of Kindness," which is an anthology of three unrelated stories, each starring Emma Stone (in her third collaboration with Lanthimos), Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, and Hong Chau. The first story is about a seemingly ordinary businessman who follows his boss's rather intricate and invasive commands. The second is about a policeman whose oceanographer wife goes missing at sea, and grows suspicious of her identity when she is found and returns home. The third is about a Scientology-like cult that's on a quest to find a young woman who can raise the dead.

There really is no obvious connective tissue between the three stories. While each of the stories "makes sense," the overall film definitely does not, and maybe that's okay. Maybe Lanthimos, like Crumb, was simply inspired to write these stories independently and then decided to stick them together in a 2 hour and 44 minute movie. There is a slight recurring theme of "the protagonist was right after all" but it's really not important to the overall film. Also, the main character in each story has the initials "R.M.F.," but otherwise the stories are unrelated.

(Unless the RMF in the first story is also the man in the third story who...well, maybe I should just keep thinking about it on my own.)

Bottom line: I'm glad I saw it, I'm glad I saw it in the theater (despite its run time), I'm glad I gave some box office support to a unique and visionary director, and although this one isn't nearly as good as The Favourite or Poor Things, I'm looking forward to whatever he does next.

Grade: B+