‘Kinds of Kindness’ review: What you won’t do for love

Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone re-team for Kinds of Kindness, an anthology of twisted love stories that’s as beautiful as it is baffling.

“What you won’t do, do for love/You’ve tried everything, but you don’t give up/In my world, only you/Make me do for love what I would not do.”

Not only is that the chorus of the 1978 Bobby Caldwell hit “What You Won’t Do for Love,” but it also appears to be the mantra of Yorgos Lanthimos when it comes to movie romance. The writer/director sees love as a powerful motivator, making people do things they would never do on any ordinary day. Love can blind you (The Lobster), make you mad with power (The Favourite), or turn you to seek vengeance (The Killing of a Sacred Deer). Any mushiness in the movies of Lanthimos is only there because someone’s heart was ripped out and left bleeding on the floor. How many other ways can love send a person spiraling into his or her darkest instincts? Let Lanthimos count the Kinds of Kindness he sees.

The latest from the Oscar-nominated director tells three stories about the lengths people go to keep their twisted relationships intact. First there’s Robert (Jesse Plemons), a well-off businessman with a pleasant wife (Hong Chau) blissfully unaware of just how much his boss Raymond (Willem Dafoe) is part of his life. Then there’s Daniel (Plemons), a local cop suspicious of his wife Liz (Emma Stone) after she’s rescued from a diving expedition and showing strange behavior. Finally there’s Emily (Stone), who left her husband (Joe Alwyn) and young daughter to join a cult lead by germaphobic yuppies (Dafoe and Chau) determined to find a blessed child that can raise the dead. All three stories have peculiar side characters, from a mysterious man (Yorgos Stefanakos) Raymond has on his payroll for “accidents” to a set of twin sisters (Margaret Qualley) with a strange relationship to life and death.

How deep is your love?

Lanthimos has made a name for himself by taking stories of basic human emotion (revenge, love, jealousy, curiosity) and twisting them to near-absurdity. With Kinds of Kindness, he may have found a middle ground on his own freaky Richter scale: not as visually warped as Poor Things, not as vicious as Sacred Deer, and not as quirky as The Lobster. The anthology format has nice catch-and-release pacing between the slow-building stories. Even without the costumes of The Favourite or the production design of Poor Things, there’s something more alive and active about Kinds of Kindness. Credit goes to Robbie Ryan (Poor Things, American Honey) whose cinematography emphasizes warm lighting and lush colors in settings that give the movie a dream-like aura. Same for the score from Jerskin Fendrix (Poor Things) that only needs the low-register echoes of “no” to create a haunting atmosphere for certain scenes.

Lanthimos’s dialogue remains engrossing, even at its most rigid and robotic. It’s the sincerity in the delivery and how cruel the wording is that makes you lean forward in your seat the more Kinds of Kindness goes on. It creates an experience on par with M. Night Shyamalan if he tried adapting some Stephen King short stories. Speaking of stories, the three that Lanthimos lays out all deal with the worst kinds of love: abusive affairs, domestic violence, and cults. The first story with Robert and Raymond is a good soft opening for the audience to understand the thesis of Kinds of Kindness. That said, it’s still a shocking example of manipulation through wealth and how far one is willing to go to keep the routine comfort their relationship offers.

Following that is the shortest (and heaviest) of the stories, when Lanthimos tries his take on a domestic abuse drama and why people stay in those relationships for so long. Heavy subject indeed, but the writing keeps throwing plot twists and body horror into the mix as a means to keep the audience guessing as to whether Daniel or Liz is the victim. Keeping vital questions unanswered while throwing raw sex and cannibalism into the pot is a wound that hampers the story as a whole.

The third story is the longest in the movie, and it needs to be. Lanthimos rushes to build the backstory of Emily and her purpose within the cult, while leaving what the cult specifically believes and how they thrive up for discussion. It’s such a layered relationship with so much potential for a deeper dive that you wish Lanthimos just made the whole movie about Emily and the cult. At least Lanthimos still knows how to leave an audience wanting more (especially with the movie’s final shot).

The friends made along the way.

Whereas Lanthimos may have taken on too much story, at least he stacked Kinds of Kindness with actors who are more than capable. Plemons is the standout, flexing different levels of restraint and intensity in all three of his characters. He shines brightest in the first story as Robert, whose sharp outfits and straight-laced demeanor hide a deep insecurity about his independence that soon bubble over into desperation for acceptance. The Daniel role in the second story is where he brings a silent intimidation factor that ultimately hides a childish possessiveness over the control in his marriage. He may be a non-factor to the final story, but he leaves this sulking impression to complete the trilogy of pathetic men craving adoration. Plemons has the physicality of old Hollywood masculinity, but watching his mask of sanity slowly crack and fall to pieces keeps you glued to the screen.

Stone has the opposite journey. She barely registers in the first story, standing as a piece of innocence in the way of Robert’s journey. Act two is where she resurrects hints of the energy she gave to Bella Baxter in Poor Things, entering scenes as a delicate rose one minute before quarterbacking a foursome in the bedroom the next. She and Plemons make good scene partners as they wait for each other to blink first at their self-imposed madness. The third story is when it becomes Stone’s movie as she breathlessly moves between seeing her cult’s mission through and feeling a crushing loneliness. Her Emily is trying so hard to justify her independence but keeps facing the orders and desires of abusive men. If Bella Baxter was Stone playing out the discovery of feminine power, here she shows the constant fight a woman does to maintain that power in life.

The rest of the cast, while featured in all three segments, have varying degrees of impact. Dafoe is best in the first story, having great chemistry with Plemons and being a sinister puppet master while still wearing khaki shorts. Qualley does the most playing twins in the final act, being something of a before-and-after picture of cult membership that deserved more development with Stone. Chau and Alwyn are ultimately wasted in their respective roles, which is especially sad for Chau as she shows glimmers of layered humanity in the few lines she’s given. You’d think Lanthimos would make more room for a stacked cast, but his stories are so loaded with intense stare downs and unspoken aggression that there’s hardly any space.

The bottom line.

It says a lot about the skill of Yorgos Lanthimos when even at his most confusing, he can still make a near three-hour movie compelling. Kinds of Kindness may not reach the visual splendor or storytelling brilliance of his past work, but it’s still one of cinema’s most talented sickos going big and hitting some high points. The anthology format helps him and his cast flex their versatility, but it does leave the viewer wanting more in crucial aspects of the stories. Is Lanthimos teasing his audience to keep them on their toes? Possibly. Is it a toxic relationship? Maybe. But look what he does to show his love for cinema.

Kinds of Kindness hits theaters Friday, June 28. You can watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Searchlight Pictures. You can read more reviews by Jon Winkler here.