Kinds of Kindness: A Misguided Exploration of Human Connection

Emma Stone’s latest collaboration with director Yorgos Lanthimos, Kinds of Kindness, starts strong but ultimately loses its way. The film’s 165-minute runtime suggests a kind of self-indulgence that hurts the narrative and themes.

The film tells three separate stories, each featuring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margot Qualley, Hong Chau, and Mamoudou Athie in different roles. The first story follows Robert (Plemons), who works for the enigmatic Raymond (Dafoe). Robert’s only job seems to be following Raymond’s instructions about what to eat, read, and when to have intercourse with his wife (Chau). The presumption is that Raymond knows best.

This intriguingly bizarre story leads the viewer to follow along a system established before the movie began. It unravels intriguing elements of Raymond’s control, with some macabre, violent humor.

In the second story, Daniel (Plemons) is a police officer whose wife, Liz (Stone), has been missing and is found on an island after a shipwreck. This story takes an unexpected turn, showing Daniel and Liz’s sexual escapades with another couple (Athie and Qualley). While intentionally confrontational, this subplot feels largely irrelevant to the story.

The third story follows Emily (Stone) and Andrew (Plemons) as they interview women they hope will present the power to bring the dead back to life. This story takes way too long to unfold, and the detours into a sex cult with Omi (Dafoe) and Aka (Chau) only add to the meandering pace.

A still from Kinds of Kindness

The film’s title must be ironic, as the stories that follow are more hostile than kind. The first story could be seen as a manipulative sort of kindness, but the second two are blatantly hostile.

Maintaining the same cast for every story is a unique approach to an anthology film. However, it ultimately fails to solve the problem most anthology films have: there aren’t enough good stories for a whole movie.

Emma Stone in Kinds of Kindness

Ultimately, Kinds of Kindness fails to deliver on its promise. With too much repetition and not enough substance, the film feels like a missed opportunity.

Yorgos Lanthimos