If one day our world ceases to exist, and some advanced civilization from another galaxy happens upon our popular culture and wants to understand all the fuss about Emma Stone – we now have the film clip they should watch.
She’s not even speaking, so translating the language of Earth won’t be a problem. She’s just dancing. It’s at the end of her latest collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos, the challenging, intriguing, perplexing-if-not-quite-infuriatingly-opaque “Kinds of Kindness.” Stone is doing an improvised victory dance, and it’s glorious. It’s clear that the Stone-Lanthimos duo, in their third feature, continues to nurture an aspect of Stone’s talent that sets her sharply apart: her fearlessness and the obvious joy she derives from it.
Still, it’s possible that we like this scene in particular because by now we’ve become thirsty – thirst is indeed the theme of the film, but let’s forget that for a moment – for a little happiness. There’s barely an ounce of it in “Kinds of Kindness,” neither is there much beauty and no recognizable kindness to speak of – “recognizable” being the operative word here. Which may be the intent of the title. Or not.
So what is “Kinds of Kindness”? Well, here’s how. Lanthimos, working with screenwriter Efthimis Filippou for the fifth time, has created a triptych — three mini-films with the same cast. A strong troupe of Lanthimos’ regulars appear, including Willem Dafoe, one of the universe’s most distinctive actors, reuniting with Stone’s Bella from “Poor Things,” now joined by a terrific Jesse Plemons, who won Best Actor at Cannes, as well as Hong Chau, Margaret Qualley, Mamoudou Athie and Joe Alwyn.
These three segments, which together last around three hours, are separate stories with different characters, and an overarching theme that can best be explained through Eurythmics song lyrics.
Lanthimos begins his film with that famous song, “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This.” Then, most importantly: “Some of them want to use you. Some of them want to be used by you. Some of them want to abuse you. Some of them want to be abused.” Yes, all of these things happen in “Kinds of Kindness,” a meditation on our free will and the ways we willingly give it up for others — at work, at home and in religion. For all of these characters, there’s something about being subjugated by someone else that provides a perverse sense of comfort.
In the first section – which is the densest, most entertaining and impressive – our protagonist, Robert, works for some shady business run by Raymond, who controls everything Robert does.
And we mean everything. What he eats, what he drinks, what he wears, where he lives with his wife – even what time they have sex, and whether they have children. Raymond decides all of this, and Robert has no problem with it – it even gets him nice gifts, like John McEnroe’s smashed racket – until he’s basically asked to commit murder.
He doesn’t perform well and is fired from his job. Then, he becomes obsessed with getting his boss’s blessing no matter what he has to do to achieve it.
Stone appears 40 minutes into the film, a cog in the same wheel. But in the next installment she takes center stage as Liz, the loving wife of suburban police officer Daniel. Liz, a scientist, has disappeared while on a sea voyage—she has “traveled the world and the seven seas,” to go on the Eurythmics’ lyrics.
Eventually she is rescued, and she returns home to her loving husband. Lovingly, that is, until Daniel begins to suspect that she isn’t really Liz. She definitely looks like Liz, but her shoes don’t fit. Also, she now likes chocolate and doesn’t remember Daniel’s favorite song. So, he begins to test her, telling her to do horrible things. And for some reason, she does it.
We won’t spoil any of the short endings, although you may find they aren’t really endings. But the feeling of “wow, what?” you may have at the end of the second part can’t be overstated, as we’re soon drawn into a cult where the only liquid the members can drink is sanctified by the tears of the creepy leader Omi and wife Aka.
Stone and Plemons reunite here as cult members tasked with finding a woman out there, somewhere, who is able to resurrect the dead. For this holy quest for a spiritual leader, Emily has left her husband and young daughter behind. She drives a purple sports car with increasing recklessness. But she also messes up, and is left begging to be let back in.
Will she find what she is looking for?
Well, it depends on whether he knows what it is. The characters here do indeed get what they think they want – but it leads them, of course, down dark paths. But hey, everyone is looking for something, the song tells us. Not to be clichéd, but who are we to disagree?
In any case, looking for a neat conceptual bow to wrap all of this up — as in Bella’s satisfying empowerment in “Poor Things” — will lead nowhere. So perhaps the best lyric we can take from Eurythmics is the simplest:
“Keep your head high. Keep moving forward.”
“Kinds of Kindness,” released in theaters Friday by Searchlight Pictures, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “strong/disturbing violent content, strong sexual content, full nudity and language.” Duration: 144 minutes. Two-and-a-half stars out of four.
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