In my first quarter of grad school, we spent three weeks watching Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours trilogy. There was something different to enjoy or reflect on from each film but the one I had the most fun interpreting was Red. I viewed it through the lens of science fiction, much to the skepticism of my professor, but I was still allowed to express them and why I saw it that way, to make my case. So, it’s no surprise that in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness, my favorite of his three sections is the third, which has the strongest science fiction element. Some might argue the middle film has the most science fiction elements, however, I think that one is more psychological and horror. But, I think, a great thing about these types of films is that they encourage that kind of discussion. Now, these two triptychs are very different in their style and approach, not just that one was done throughout three movies and the other is one long movie. Kieślowski loosely weaves the stories by having background action/characters repeat and then in Red having a bunch of the characters from the previous films on the boat at the end. For Lanthimos, the connective tissue is the character R.M.F (played by Yorgos Stefanakos) who is the only character to span across the three parts even if the other core actors do, just as different characters. However, even though his character does, the character is not the same in each world, as R.M.F. is shaped by the events and the world around him so he’s as changed as the roles played by Emma Stone (Rita, Liz, and Emily), Jesse Plemons (Robert, Daniel, and Andrew), Willem Dafoe (Raymond, George, and Omi), Margaret Qualley (Vivian, Martha, Rebecca, and Ruth), Hong Chau (Sarah, Sharon, and Aka), etc.
This makes sense given Yorgos Lanthimos’ history of working with actors in multiple films, that it would only become more pronounced, not less, when doing a triptych as the style. Lanthimos’ next film Bugonia has already been announced for a November 7th, 2025 release starring Emma Stone, which will mark the 4thfeature she will star in from the filmmaker since 2018’s The Favourite. The film will also star Jesse Plemons, who made his first appearance in a Lanthimos film with Kinds of Kindness. But since he played three roles in the film, he’s now more than proven himself in Lanthimos’ repertory theatre of character actors.
If you are going to see Kinds of Kindness, my recommendation is to go in expecting to experience three lightly connected stories starring the same company of actors, like Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Stories but for the big screen experience. The kinds of tales these stories most reminded me of were Alfred Hitchcock’s Presents, which were his small-screen tales, so this is kind of a full circle moment taking those kinds of stories and putting them back on the big screen.
Like Lanthimos’ last film, Poor Things, which features all of the Kinds of Kindness’ main cast except for Plemons and Chau, Kinds of Kindness explores sex and sexual violence in various ways. Whether it’s through a cult of consent where they are saying yes but when you are in a cult are you capable of consent? To overt sexual assault. And a character in what they thought was a loving relationship, only to discover that everything they believed about it was built on lies, including traumatic things. I don’t see the film as glorifying these things, that we can see the horror behind these acts, but they are still there and others may view them differently or be triggered, so it is something to acknowledge.
Kinds of Kindness is in theatres now.
Cara-Lynn Branch
