Kinds of Kindness

After Jesse Plemons’ triumph with Best Actor in Cannes and a relative box office success, Kinds of Kindness somehow lost its momentum to the almost shocking extent of sporting a 71%tomato – 49%popcorn RT score, by and far Lanthimos’ worst such accumulation since his uneven debut ‘Kineta’. But does this lack of approval represent reality or one of those random moments where peeps seem to be tripping?

Assessment of critics’ consensus evaluation:  ⋆ ⋆  [Some got it, some didn’t]

Assessment of Normal People’s Ratings: ⋆ [Normal folks’ opinion was pretty trash]

Boredom or Sleep Potential: ⋆ [Despite its 164 min it’s more likely that people walked out than that they fell asleep] 

Why do we choose to have this movie as the first entry in this space? You could easily reason that Greek author + Greek director= biased interest. Wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. But as we’re slowly looking to introduce Goatcycle, one thing should become salient. As a rule of thumb, films will end up here either because they didn’t get the reception they deserved (the case at this moment), or because they got a reception that was slightly or ridiculously overblown. Stressing this one again, reception can be directed at the average moviegoer, as well as at the ostensibly prestigious critic. 

Film and Director Impact: Lanthimos is the king of taking contemporary or transgenerational issues and pushing them to their illogical extremes. His propensity for touching upon extremely serious societal scourge and proceeding to tackle its poisonous impact via a combination of humor and hyperbole is well documented. Yes, the world is a shithole, people die and suffer because of aspects relevant to this shitholeness, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a laugh about it. He’s mastered the art of doing the latter while remaining politically correct, an extremely intelligent balance that has him revered both by communities that little-minded people like to derogatively call ‘woke’, as well as by those who plainly enjoy vulgarity and courage in the cinematic experience.

What makes this one special:  Kinds of Kindness promotes its themes and motifs the way our dreams take our conscious and subconscious yearnings or predicaments and consolidate them into meaning via seemingly bogus symbolism. You’d probably say that’s not true, and that Lanthimos’ symbolism is actually quite conspicuous, however, you would likely think the same if you got to watch a longer version of your dream projected on a big wall. Perhaps the main reason why our dreams seem so bogus and bull is that they cram a story that would otherwise be around two hours long into a super fast-forwarded 10 minute stint. Our brain capacity is not exactly vivid and at full capacity while we sleep. In this manner, one might say that Lanthimos occassionally exposes the simpleness of dream narratives and scenarios by passing it to us through film during the hours when we are actually awake.   

Spoiler-less Summary: Kinds of kindness is about abuse in all its forms. It’s about cults, deception, as well as hypocrisy. Of course, it’s about human bonds, whether in relationships or friendships, grief, rational and irrational decisions and what constitutes these as such. It’s about finding meaning, about autonomy and whether freedom is a facade. And in what seems to have escaped a lot of viewers who complained about the lack of nuance and connection between the trio of stories, it’s about how our backgrounds and environment can have a profound impact on what we end up becoming. Surely there are predispositions (depending on his starting point Willem Dafoe could be a fraud cult leader, a cannibal CEO, a toxic dad or all of the above), but our mental reality and wellbeing is often hanging by an extremely thin thread. 

Reason for Mediocre Reception aka Recency Bias: So yes, Kinds of Kindness was overshadowed by Poor Things. Emma Stone and Lanthimos stole each other’s thunder, because they didn’t feel like waiting a year to send this gem out. If we could somehow reside in a parallel world where Lanthimos had not reached the heights he already has, and this was one of his first submissions to the international movie library, most haters would potentially render this a big hit. Had he employed a marketing manager, they’d brief him on the dangers of churning this one out a few months after a feminist masterpiece. 

Does this explain it? No! The two are films that are likely to be enjoyed by different factions of critics and moviegoers. The arguments you’ll hear about this one flopping is that it was disturbing, ostentatious and purposeless. In my book, the latter three have never been a particularly sound way to dismiss a film.

Why you should just watch it: I am weak for anthology films, and if you are too, this ought not be missed. While it may not be Pulp Fiction or even Relatos Salvajes, the acting, energy and cinematic atmosphere are essentially flawless, so even if you end up on the ‘Lanthimos is an absurd prick’ side of the spectrum, you’d more than likely enjoy it. In my peculiar eyes this is a Top 3 film for the director, and it’s a shame how the Average Joe Mafia as well as the Critic Police missed out on it.