Kinds Of Kindness (2024)

It is time, once again, for director Yorgos Lanthimos to present a dark, and darkly comedic, film for fans to be equal parts entertained and repelled by, helped again by writer Efthimis Filippou. If you've ever wondered just how much Yorgos Lanthimos could fit into a film directed and co-written by Yorgos Lanthimos then this might just definitively answer that. ALL the Lanthimosity is here, and it runs through three equally bizarre tales that are presented in 164 minutes of "kindness".

Don't take this the wrong way, but there's not much point in covering the three stories presented here in great detail. I initially considered it, viewing them as separate from one another, but then I came to the conclusion that they are all basically the same story told in slightly different ways. People have their loyalty tested, and they are often in pursuit of someone they believe will fix anything that has suddenly gone wrong in their life. There's also at least one moment of wince-inducing violence.

There are four main cast members - Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Mamoudou Athie, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, and Hong Chau - used to portray various characters throughout the three tales, with three of these performers having already worked so well with Lanthimos in Poor Things. Everyone seems to put complete trust in their director, giving the kind of strangely mannered performances that run through the entire Lanthimos filmography, but it's Plemons who feels like the newcomer excelling in a way that will surely see him added to the core group of regulars.

The script is about as odd as anything else that Lanthimos and Filippou have given us, and I am aware of what I am measuring it against. Few things are fully explained, which can lead to a small amount of irritation, but also one or two brilliant surprises, and there's never a feeling of this being in anything close to the real world. It's a Lanthimos world, although this time he seems to have applied a filter to his work that mixes in some David Lynch and Rod Serling. It's a big gamble, and if you don't like the earliest scenes then you are unlikely to enjoy any of it, but it will satisfy those who may have been worried about recent successes softening the edges of the director.

For something so lengthy and strange, there's not actually that much more to say about it. It's . . . lengthy and strange. I think it's a bit over-indulgent, but I was also happy to be entertained and bewildered by every minute of it. It also made me want to revisit his past few movies, which kind of shows how well it fits in with his developing filmography, despite the anthology format making it feel like a bit of a departure from what he has done previously.

Some directors give their fans what they want and it then turns out that they wanted something a bit different. I don't think that is the case here. Lanthimos has found a fanbase receptive to his art, which has afforded him more opportunities to make more of it, and the end result is a win win. I am already growing impatient to see what he delivers next.

8/10

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Poor Things (2023)

Another film from director Yorgos Lanthimos, who has delivered one stunning feature after another for the past decade (and even his earlier work is of interest to those who appreciate his strange look at the world), Poor Things is a film I wish I had seen sooner, but I just couldn’t schedule the cinema trip. I am now even more regretful of that missed opportunity.

Emma Stone plays Bella, a young woman who has been created, in a way, by Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). As she rushes through various stages of development, from learning language to eventually learning about the pleasures of sex, Bella accepts a proposal from Godwin’s assistant, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef). She feels as if she should see a bit more of the world first though, and ends up travelling for a while with the caddish (although a number of other adjectives could also be listed here) Duncan Wedderburn.

Adapted from a novel by Alasdair Gray, Poor Things has a screenplay by Tony McNamara, wonderful cinematography from Robbie Ryan, and a suitably strange and wonderful score by Jerskin Fendrix. I am mentioning these people now before I forget them entirely, because my movie reviews simply don’t have the space to list every single person who contributed to this wonderful vision. Rest assured, however, that this is the kind of film that makes you want to take note of every name, from the production designers to the wardrobe department, from the make up to the lighting. It really is a brilliant group effort to deliver a vision that will be credited mainly to the director and cast.

Moving from what seems like a standard period drama setting to a cool, unexplained, steampunk sci-fi world, Lanthimos is once again having fun with an implausible concept that he can use to scrutinize the rules and hypocrisies of society. This would make an excellent companion piece to his masterpiece, The Lobster, covering the equally important topics of love and sex.

Stone is brilliant in the lead performance here, hilariously non-conformist and constantly questioning the rules and etiquette she sees as obstacles to her enjoyment of life. Ruffalo is equally good, and has many of the best lines in the film, swearing and klutzing his way through every scene as he tries to make himself out to be a much better man than he really is. Dafoe, working under some excellent make up, is as dependable as ever, even doing a decent job with what I think was meant to be a Scottish accent, and Youssef heads up a fine selection of supporting players, including Vicki Pepperdine, Margaret Qualley, and Christopher Abbott.

Simultaneously both funnier and darker than I expected, and also cruder and smarter, this has already been quite rightly praised as one of the best movies of 2023. It has plenty packed in every scene to reward repeat viewings, and I am already keen to make time for my own rewatch.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: Dogtooth (2009)

Although not the first feature film from director Yorgos Lanthimos, who also wrote the script with Efthymis Filippou, Dogtooth is the film that gained him international attention, effectively springboarding him to a higher level (in terms of the resources available to him and the themes explored).

This is a tale of a father (Christos Stergioglou), a mother (Michele Valley), their son (Christos Passalis), and two daughters (the elder played by Angeliki Papoulia, the younger played by Mary Tsoni). The father has a job, but he is basically the only one to leave the house, and both parents provide a strange education to their children that keeps them sheltered from the world around them. But such a strange and twisted set-up can never last forever, surely. Especially with one visitor (Christina, played by Anna Kalaitzidou) who could accidentally reveal the lies that these child-like young adults are being fed.

Apparently a film that will be very familiar to anyone who has seen The Castle Of Purity, this is an uncomfortable film from the very first scenes, with relief provided by the decision to film most of the potentially claustrophobic scenes in a large, bright house. The casting of the children as unwitting prisoners shows just how much family units can so easily be polluted and fall apart. Parents always want to control the environment for their children, and perhaps try their hardest to control what they take in from their education syllabus, but children start to fully grow in the moments away from their parents. They need care and love, and much more, but they also need social interaction, they need to learn more for themselves, and they need time away from their parents. Because parents can be the ones who cause the most damage.

All of the performances in the film are excellent, with the cast often playing things in a very controlled and unnatural way. Stergioglou deserves particular praise, portraying a monster who is all the more horrifying for the lack of self-awareness of his own monstrosity. Papoulia and Tsoni are brilliant, with the former involved in a third act scene that will make everyone wince and want to look away, and Passalis does well with a performance that is almost zombie-like. The sisters have the extra bonus of sisterly company, while the son feels slightly more isolated, and that shows in the performances.

Lanthimos is a huge talent, I have raved about most of his other movies, and Dogtooth is an excellent film to watch as you decide whether his knack of exploring societal (ab)norms in an uncomfortable, and often sterile and stilted, way is something you can get on board with. I hope you do.

9/10

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Mubi Monday: The Favourite (2018)

We're very lucky to have Yorgos Lanthimos. He's been making consistently great cinema for the past couple of decades now, and I recommend everything that he's done (although there are still one or two I have yet to see from his filmography, with the big omission being Alps).

The Favourite, from a script by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, is another jet-black comedy, not as deliberately strange as The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (in terms of both content and acting style) but still far enough removed from the norm to be a heady brew of laughs, nastiness, and occasional bemusement.

Olivia Colman is a frail and petulant Queen Anne, a woman who allows herself to be manipulated by her closest friend, Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz). The relationship between the two women allows Lady Sarah to effectively rule over the country, by proxy, and that displeases some (especially Harley, played by Nicholas Hoult, a member of parliament trying to put an end to a war with France). Things start to change, however, with the arrival of Abigail (Emma Stone), a young woman who is a cousin of Lady Sarah, yet now seems a world removed from her due to a life of misfortune and hardship caused by her gambling father. Abigail sees an opportunity to get back all that she lost over the years, but she will need to ingratiate herself with the queen, push Lady Sarah out of her privileged position, and deal with the likes of Harley, a man happy to help or hinder anyone, depending on what they might be able to offer him.

Based on actual events, amazingly enough, The Favourite somehow works in every way that it can be viewed: comedy, political thriller, period drama. It works best as a mix of all three, obviously, but anyone who doesn't appreciate the other aspects of it should at least find one main strand they can appreciate. Lanthimos weaves it all together with an expert touch, allowing the more modern and unflinching presentation to play up the way in which all of the main characters are happy and quick enough to roll around in effluence, sometimes literally, as long as they know it's a way to eventually rise higher up than before. There are times when the more modern sensibility threatens to pull viewers out of the experience, but they aren't frequent enough to become a major issue.

The acting is equal to the material, with Colman already receiving plenty of deserved praise for her wonderful portrayal of Queen Anne. Weisz and Stone shouldn't be lightly dismissed though, and it's worth celebrating the fact that we get a film giving us three such fantastic portrayals of such enthralling female characters. Hoult has a lot of fun in his role, Joe Alwyn is fine as another gentleman who ends up involved in the scheming, and Mark Gatiss is fitting in his small role (almost a cameo, really).

Not for the prudish, The Favourite is a fascinating look at various people trying to influence one another in a variety of ways. It's about power, about reputation, about love, and it's about Lanthimos cutting further and further into the heart of things once again with the precision of a skilled surgeon.

8/10

You can buy The Lobster (still his best movie) here.
Americans can buy it here.

The Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017)

Colin Farrell plays a surgeon named Steven Murphy. He seems to have the perfect life. A lovely wife (Anna, played by Nicole Kidman), a teenage daughter (Kim, played by Raffey Cassidy), and a younger son (Bob, played by Sunny Suljic). He also has a rather strange friendship with a young boy named Martin (Barry Keoghan), and it's this relationship that starts to change things in his life, leading to a disturbing and thought-provoking third act.

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, who also co-wrote with his regular collaborator Efthymis Filippou, The Killing Of A Sacred Deer is yet another brilliant slice of cerebral oddness from the Greek provocateur. It's even more potentially divisive than his last film, the absolutely brilliant The Lobster, and a number of stylistic choices may aggravate viewers who aren't drawn in by the macabre central ideas that come to the fore as the narrative unfolds.

Farrell gives another fantastic performance (if he decides to work with Lanthimos every other year then I'll be very happy with that), as does everyone else involved, but the speaking style is very strange and almost as if these people are struggling to weigh up the impact of every word they speak, even in the most innocuous of sentences. Kidman, Cassidy, and Suljic all seem a bit more passive, although that's not necessarily the case as you see everyone struggle with the main choice forced upon them, and Keoghan is a wonderful mix of childishness and quiet intensity. Fans of Alicia Silverstone might be surprised by her small role, but I was just happy to see her in a film again, having not seen her in anything for many years (has she been in much lately?).

Less immediately appealing than his previous movie, Lanthimos consistently fills this film with characters who interact in a way that very rarely allows for any actual warmth and humanity. The behaviour is matched by the environment and shooting style, with the situation demanding a fair share of hospital shots, for example, and a detached and clinical camera. What we are shown, and how we are shown it, makes the experience much more voyeuristic and discomforting than many other movies from the past year.

If you have seen some of the previous films from Lanthimos then you will know, to a degree, what to expect here, although that doesn't mean that you will be guaranteed to like it. It has less dark humour than many of his other features, which makes it slightly less entertaining but no less intelligent and interesting. I recommend it to everyone, and I'll be just as happy to hear from the people who hated it as I will be to hear from those who share my own opinion.

8/10.

You can buy it here.
Americans can buy it here.