Star director Giorgos Lanthimos won an Oscar for the historical film “The Favourite” (2018) and four Oscars in March for the Frankenstein drama “Poor Things”. With his film “Kinds of Kindness”, the Greek (50) returns to the pure arthouse spirit of his earlier works.
As he did for his Oscar-winning films, Lanthimos has once once more hired star actress Emma Stone. New to her side is Jesse Plemons (“Civil War”), who won the best actor award for his performance in Cannes. And rightly so, as he, like the entire ensemble, plays completely different characters in the three-part episodic film in which Lanthimos weaves three parables regarding power, obsession and free will, and which becomes a celebration of acting.
In the first chapter, Plemons plays Robert, who is a slave to his boss (Willem Dafoe). When the boss tries to make him a murderer, however, he refuses and triggers a downward spiral. In episode two, police officer Daniel (Plemons) doubts that his returned wife Liz (Stone) is actually his wife, and this drives her to extremes. In part three, Stone and Plemons, as members of a cult, search for a savior for their guru Omi (Dafoe). Lanthimos uses the entire range of imagery and once once more does not shy away from explicit descriptions.
Overall, the avant-gardist proves himself once once more to be a cinematic magician, but the whole thing does have its longueurs. (apa/maf)
“Kinds of Kindness”: USA/GB/IRL 2024, 164 min., in cinemas from Thursday
OÖN rating: four out of six stars
