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For those who only just got acquainted with Yorgos Lanthimos because of his star turn at the Academy Awards this year for Poor Things, it would come as no surprise that viewers hoping for âmore of the sameâ might be disappointed by his quick follow-up, Kinds of Kindness. While, sure, both movies are in keeping with Lanthimosâ penchant for âquirkyâ (a reductive term if ever there was one in terms of describing anything that is âweirdââalso usually a reductive term) narratives starring Emma Stone, Kinds of Kindness is distinctly begat of the auteurâs mind. This being in contrast to Poor Things, which was an adaptation of someone elseâs workâspecifically, Alasdair Grayâs 1992 novel of the same name. Presented even more overtly as âa Frankenstein storyâ in Lanthimosâ hands (though, as some pointed out, it was more like the plot of Frankenhooker, released in 1990), audiences were more easily charmed by this kind of âquirk,â paired with Stoneâs rendering of Bella Baxter. Put it this way: Poor Things is the most âTim Burtonâ Lanthimos has ever allowed himself to get.
In truth, Lanthimosâ âreturn to himselfâ with Kinds of Kindness seems in part designed to remind people not to get too used to the linear, âeasy-to-pinpoint messageâ of Poor Things. So it is that the film commences with the first story in the âtriptych,â where weâre introduced to the unifying thread of each story: R.M.F. (indeed, that was one of the original titles of the movie, apart from the more abstract And). A man who is never given a clear backstory, yet whose shirt and initials will serve as a consistent talisman. In fact, it is R.M.F. (Yorgos Stefanakos) who we first see enter the scene via car while blasting the Eurythmicsâ signature 1983 track, âSweet Dreams (Are Made of This)â (a song that will also serve as another consistent thread in each story). So begins âVignette #1,â if you will, titled âThe Death of R.M.F.â When R.M.F. knocks on the door of the lavish house heâs arrived at, Vivian (Margaret Qualley) answers the door in a silk robe thatâs cut as short as it can be without her ass showing (and, in truth, if Qualley had an ass, it would definitely peek out of a robe like that). She takes one look at the shirt heâs wearing, with his initials monogrammed on the breast pocket and tells her husband, Raymond (Willem Dafoe), over the phone exactly what R.M.F. is wearing, including the assurance that his shirt doesnât look wrinkled. Even so, she still sends a picture of the shirt to prove it (an initial glimpse into Raymondâs fastidious nature).
R.M.F., weâll soon find, is the man that Raymondâs emotional whipping boy, Robert (Jesse Plemons), has been tasked with crashing his car into. And why? Simply because Raymond wants him to. Indeed, this particular segment comes across as an allegory for the average employer-employee relationship, with the employer demanding to have total and unbridled control over the person they âown.â For the past ten years, Robert has been only too willing to do whatever Raymond has asked of himâfrom marrying Sarah (Hong Chau), the woman Raymond âpicked outâ at the Cheval Bar (where theyâre regulars) to lacing her coffee with mifepristone because Raymond doesnât want Robert to have children (that could be very distracting from work, after all). Thus, the toxicity masquerading as âloveâ (mainly for all the material things that Raymond provides him with in exchange for Robertâs total lack of autonomy) shines through at its most unignorable when Raymond makes this request. The request for Robert to crash into R.M.F. Of course, Robert has no idea who R.M.F. is, heâs merely told that the man is willing to die (if the crash should happen to be too impactful) for this bizarre exercise in fealty.
One might say that the entire running motif of Kinds of Kindness is, in fact, fealty. And the lengths that people are willing to go in order to prove it to a toxic âalphaâ in the situation. This much is also true in the next âvignette,â âR.M.F. Is Flyingâ (perhaps an allusion to his limbo state after finally being run over multiple times by Robert in response to Raymond cutting him off cold turkey from his âloveâ). In this setup, Plemons is now Daniel, a police officer reeling over the recent disappearance of his wife, Liz (Stone), who is some kind of marine biologist lost at sea. Her miraculous return with her fellow researcher, Jonathan (JaâQuan Monroe-Henderson), is met with joy and relief by their friends, Neil (Mamoudou Athie) and Martha (Qualley), and Lizâs father, George (Dafoe). However, it is less comforting to Daniel when he starts to suspect that the woman who has returned is not his wife at all. Mainly because itâs âlittle detailsâ about her that arenât tracking with the âoriginalâ Liz. For a start, this Liz is perfectly okay to eat chocolate, a sweet she hated before, and, secondly, because her feet are suddenly slightly too big for all her shoes. When Daniel tells his theory to Sharon (Chau), Jonathanâs wife, she can only stare back at him in disbelief.
Despite no one believing him, Danielâs conviction that his wife isnât really his wife only intensifies, causing him to have an âepisodeâ on the job that leads to his suspension from the force. Still convinced that Liz is someone else, he proceeds to test how devoted she is to him, demanding that she cook her own thumb for him to prove her love (side note: heâs been on a hunger strike against anything she makes for him). When she actually does, he not only says her thumb is disgusting and he would never eat it, but he also then ups the ante by requesting that she cook her own liver for him (talk about a Hannibal Lecter-esque sweet fantasy, or âsweet dream,â to be more Eurythmics-centric). At the end of this petite histoire, the real Liz does show up once Fake Liz ends up killing herself with a self-extraction of the liver to prove her love. Whatâs the additional message here? Perhaps that ârealâ love isnât always that selfless. Otherwise it can get pretty tainted pretty fast.
And, speaking of âtainted,â thatâs what the final âvignette,â âR.M.F. Eats A Sandwich,â is all about. Namely with regard to (sex) cult leaders Omi (Dafoe) and Aka (Chau) insisting on their subjectsâ âpurityâ if they are to be accepted into the, er, fold for fucking. Whenever Omi or Aka hears that one of their âsubjectsâ has broken the bonds of âloyaltyâ to the cult (which is somewhat ironic considering theyâre all fucking multiple peopleâŚbut hey, so long as itâs within the cult, itâs fine), they have their ways of testing for compromised âpurityâ (a.k.a. STDs).
Emily (Stone), a recent convert to the âcause,â seems overly eager to prove herself and her, again, fealty, to Omi and Aka by seeking out a healer that can supposedly reanimate the dead. Which is why the story begins with measuring and weighing the latest âpotentialâ healer, Anna (Hunter Schafer), like sheâs a piece of meat. Joining Emily in that task is Andrew (Plemons), a fellow cult member thatâs been âassignedâ to Emily, as it were, by Omi and Aka. When they try to get Anna to deliver on the final (and most important) testâreviving the deadâshe failsâŚmuch to Emilyâs (in particular) dismay.
After the disappointment, Andrew and Emily get into her vibrant purple Dodge Challenger and continue on their way, talking to Aka over the phone about whether or not they have enough water for the journey. This rather precise question sets up one of the cruxes of the storyline, which is that, in order to be âpure,â the cult members must only drink water that has been âcraftedâ out of Omi and Akaâs tears. Ergo, theyâre given thermoses filled with this âspecialâ kind of water (a kind of kindness, duh) whenever they hit the road on one of their quests to find the healer. Of course, theyâre not flying totally blind. There are certain known criteria about the healer theyâre looking for: sheâs a woman, sheâs a twin, sheâs a twin whose other twin died and she has a specific age, height and weight.
As for Emilyâs âformerâ life before becoming a cultist, she was a mother and a wife to Joseph, portrayed by Joe Alwyn, who takes the chance on playing a role where he âhas toâ rape in a climate that already has him in âvillain modeâ thanks to his breakup with Taylor Swift (who, yes, will probably uncomfortably watch this movie and scene since Emma Stone is in her âsquad,â as is Jack Antonoffâs wife, Margaret Qualley). Occasionally pulled back to that âold lifeâ of hers out of a sense of, letâs say, wifely and maternal duty, Joseph ends up getting her cast out of the cult when he date rapes her, and Omi, Aka and Andrew immediately find out when they catch her coming out of the house the following morning.
In the wake of her âaffrontâ to their âcauseâ (like all cult leaders, that cause is ultimately self-aggrandizement), they drag her to their outdoor âsteam room.â A âhot boxâ is more like itâand one that looks like something out of Midsommar. Cranking the heat up as high as possible to âpurifyâ her, when she is taken out of the box and placed on a perch for Aka to lick sweat off her stomach and see if sheâs still âcontaminated,â the result is not in Emilyâs favor. Shunned from the cult, Emily determines to prove her commitment by finding the healer, once and for all. A quest that, predictably, results in catastrophic circumstances.
As Kind of Kindness concludes with a mid-credits scene where we finally do see R.M.F. eating that sandwich, the viewer is left to reconcile the idea that maybe blind loyalty is more pathetic than it is noble (see: Republicans and Trump). Something that shouldnât have to be spelled out for people at this juncture, but, sadly, still needs to be. As a matter of fact, many will likely not get that message because Kinds of Kindness doesnât spell it out enough for the average feeble mind. And, maybe, in his own meta way, Lanthimos is actually testing the loyalty of his âtrueâ devotees with this film.
Genna Rivieccio
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