Kinds of Kindness
Kinds of Kindness is Yorgos back in his weird bag, it’s like he said oh y’all thought Poor Things was freaky just you wait. I kind of love the fact that he’s roped more people into his films, with slightly more palatable ventures in Poor Things and The Favourite, and a cast of actors so likeable they’re likely to draw in an audience on name alone. I think it’s exposing more people to experimental cinema and I really love him for that, it’s what mainstream movies are missing. Stuff that actively wants you to be critically thinking both during and after the film finishes.
Yorgos is so successful at this as he is able to balance entertainment and captivating stories with just wild scenarios. The fables he concocts here are just truly bizarre but not without purpose, there’s meaning behind his madness. The title of the film is incredibly smart as by the second story you’re starting to grasp what the connective tissue is between these vignettes. In this we are exploring kindness in our society in various ways but I think more so the perversions of kindness.
Throughout each of the stories we are brought into worlds which have varying degrees of magical realism to them but what stays consistent is characters who are perceived to be kind or characters who are viewing other characters as kind. In the first story Willem Defo is perceived to be kind by Jesse Plemons, but control is a form of kindness to those being controlled. It’s this dizzying, disarming kindness that once you’ve escaped it you crave it, it becomes part of you. To a fresh eye this is clearly an abusive relationship, and in part I think Yorgos wanted to explore the intoxicating and enchanting kindness that is felt from those in abusive relationships.
It’s a thread that appears throughout all three stories. Willem in the first is controlling, Jesse is mistrust and paranoia, and both the cult and Joe in the third are sexual. It’s deeply ingrained in the roots of the film and it’s something wholly unique to this film, the disarming allure of abusive relationships is rarely explored and Yorgos does so here with a tenderness which is perhaps a strange word to describe this film but it’s kind to the characters in the film who have lost themselves to these abusive relationships and shows how easily any of us could find ourselves in one.
The film creates this air of unease so simply and doesn’t not hold up on making you feel uneasy for the entire lengthy runtime. The just incredibly jarring and disturbing score from Jedrix Fendrick paired with the static ness and wideness of most shots intercut with extreme close ups adds to this horrid atmosphere, easily putting across the idea that these forms of kindness are warped.
The performances also are just incredibly fun, Jesse Plemons gets so much to work with and he just nails the three characters he plays, as does Emma Stone and Willem Defo who are become Yorgos staples and fit so well in his off kilter dialogue and strange peculiarities.
If I was to critique this film I do think by the end of the runtime the thematic elements are a little worn thin but it’s just different enough that makes this enjoyable and each of the stories on their own are so much fun it’s hard not to enjoy
What’s so incredibly fun about Yorgos’ work is that all of this heaviness and tackling of dark and shied away from themes is packaged in such strange and wonderful stories which are simultaneously entertaining, it’s thought provoking cinema and it’s pushing the boundaries on what gets into cinemas.