Start the week with a film: ‘Kinds of Kindness’ is weirdly compelling

The irony begins with the title. It’s hard to imagine an exploration of empathy from Greek absurdity specialist Yorgos Lanthimos. Sure enough, Kinds of Kindness is a withering examination of human weaknesses, especially the inability to stand up to controlling behaviour.

The English-language film is a triptych with different stories and the same cast. Among the performers is Lanthimos’s muse Emma Stone, who justly won a best actress Oscar for playing a revivified corpse in his Poor Things (2023). But the Kinds of Kindness star is Jesse Plemons, who has been quietly yet steadily giving a series of memorable performances.

The movie is out on Disney+ Hotstar. The slow-burning narrative by Lanthomis and co-writer Efthimis Filippou requires patience, especially in the third episode.

The first, and most impressive, segment, evokes Lanthimos’s international breakthrough film Dogtooth (2009), a brutal drama about a psychotic father and his disturbed family. Plemons plays Robert, who is in a masochistic relationship with his mentor/boss/father figure Raymond (Willem Dafoe).

Raymond collects people, like he collects memorabilia. Raymond dictates every minute of Robert’s life, down to his marital arrangements with Sarah (Hong Chau). Something has to give way and it does, leaving Robert bereft.

It gets weirder in the second chapter. Plemons plays Daniel, a police officer worried about the fate of his missing wife Liz...

Read more