Kinds of Kindness

I think Yorgos Lanthimos is an incredibly provocative director (my favorite kind) and I have enjoyed all of his previous movies so I was really excited to see his latest, Kinds of Kindness, last night at the Broadway with my nephew.  We both really enjoyed this absurdist black comedy (I was surprised by how much my nephew liked it).  This is an anthology of three different stories featuring the same actors in repertory with similar themes and motifs.  In the first, Robert (Jesse Plemons) is under the complete control of his boss Raymond (Willem Dafoe) who dictates every aspect of his life including what he wears, what he eats, what he reads, and even when he can have sex with his wife Sarah (Hong Chau).  When Raymond asks him to do something that goes against his conscience, Robert refuses and his life falls apart.  He learns that Raymond has recruited a woman named Rita (Emma Stone) to complete the task instead and, in a fit of jealousy, he takes matters into his own hands to impress him.  In the second, Daniel (Jesse Plemons) is a police officer whose wife Liz (Emma Stone), a marine biologist, has gone missing at sea.  When she is miraculously rescued, Daniel becomes irrationally convinced that the woman is not really his wife.  This prompts Liz to take extreme measures to prove that she loves him.  In the third, Emily (Emma Stone) has abandoned her husband Joseph (Joe Alwyn) and their daughter to join a sex cult led by Omi (Willem Dafoe) and Aki (Hong Chau).  She and Andrew (Jesse Plemons) are assigned to leave the compound to search for a woman prophesied to have spiritual powers.  However, Emily takes the opportunity to visit Joseph and her daughter and, in doing so, she becomes "contaminated" and is expelled from the cult.  She then goes rogue in order to find the woman (Hunter Schafer or is it Margaret Qualley?) the cult is looking for.  This is absolutely wild (I heard a lot of uncomfortable laughter and my nephew gave me a WTF look at one point) but all three of these stories explore the lengths that people will go to find love, acceptance, and community which is something almost everyone can relate to.  The fact that the same actors reappear in similar roles also reinforces the idea that this is a universal theme that continually plays out in society.  There are several bizarre recurring images (I was particularly struck by the use of dreams, shown in black and white, to foreshadow events) and the continual use of jarring piano notes during key moments is incredibly unnerving.  Plemons is outstanding, showing a range that definitely deserved to be rewarded at Cannes this year, and Stone is a perfect foil to his caged unpredictability.  This is most definitely not for everyone but fans of Lanthimos will find this to be a return to the absurdity of The Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer.