Kinds of Kindness is a banger of a summer horror movie — but it's not for everyone
CBC
Yorgos Lanthimos's new movie with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons is not the comedy-drama audiences might be expecting — instead, it's an extremely dark, extremely funny horror-comedy.
Kinds of Kindness will alienate audiences looking for a light romp, but horror fans will have a great time with this anthology film.
The movie runs two hours and 45 minutes and is divided into three bloody parts, with the first skewering entitled CEOs and their middle-managing minions.
It's the least successful of the three stories.
Jesse Plemons plays Robert, a man whose life is decided for him by a controlling boomer boss played to hilarious effect by Willem Defoe.
Robert doesn't get to decide where he lives or what he eats and lives a small life in an ugly but expensive home. Then, his boss asks for something that he can't provide. Antics ensue.
This first instalment in the anthology is a little long, meandering in its effort to make its point. It can also be confusing and doesn't give audiences much to grab onto in the way of relatable characters or plot.
Bored audiences might wonder if Lanthimos, who has had major hits in The Favorite (2018) and Poor Things (2023), lost his touch on this one — but the opposite is true.
In this first, gentler, short film, Lanthimos is setting the table for the rest of his anthology, and it's worth sticking with it to its outrageous and sinister conclusion.
Then audiences are dropped into a new terrifying tale, and another, in rapid succession, with the same cast playing very different parts. At this point, things get delightfully terrifying.
It would be a disservice to explain the plot of all three instalments. Part of the fun of this anthology is losing your bearings in the incredible worlds that Lanthimos has built and having absolutely no idea where the stories are headed.
So without ruining too much of the film, here's what you need to know: The movie is not the drama-comedy it is being billed as.
If audiences want a fun, satirical comedy similar to his other recent films, this isn't it.
Instead, Kinds of Kindness shares a lot of DNA with Lanthimos's Killing of a Scared Deer (2017). That psychological horror cast Barry Keogan as a young man tormenting a family because of its morally dubious patriarch, played by Colin Farrell.
