And those are some of the nicer plot points testing characters played by Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and the film’s primary lead, Jesse Plemons.
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Anthology films always have the same problem: Some stories are better than others. The issue is exacerbated because the pieces are presented together, making the lesser parts look worse. Additionally, there’s usually some element tying the stories together. As its tie that binds, “Kinds of Kindness” offers up the mysterious R.M.F. (Yorgos Stefanakos), who silently appears in every story. Whether he’s the same character in all three is open for interpretation.
You’ll be wasting your time trying to figure anything out. Just accept everything as it is presented, because none of the characters are developed enough to get you to care about their plights. Once you realize you are being trolled, any power wielded by the film evaporates.
This descent into unfeeling boredom is a staple of Lanthimos’s films; they’re like watching the ants in an anthill get fried by a giggling, sad*stic kid holding a magnifying glass in the path of the sun.
Though I was far more irritated than disturbed, I should warn there’s some rough material here. In fact, the two women sitting behind me at my screening were so repulsed they audibly complained before walking out.
I admit I was jealous; I wanted to see the sick movie they thought they were watching.
But I digress. If there’s any message to be found in “Kinds of Kindness,” it’s hinted at by the song opening the film: “Sweet Dreams,” by the Eurythmics. Annie Lennox sings that everybody is looking for something. “Some of them want to abuse you,” she croons, “some of them want to be abused.”
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Hint or not, it’s still heavy-handed.
The first tale, “The Death of R.M.F.,” is the best. A mustachioed Plemons plays Robert Fletcher, a man whose every move is controlled by a mysterious rich man named Raymond (Willem Dafoe). Every day, Raymond tells Richard what to eat, what to wear, how much he should weigh, and even when he can make love to his wife, Sarah (Chau).
To reward his obedience, Robert and Sarah receive extravagant gifts from Raymond, including a tennis racket John McEnroe once smashed. These items are associated with wrath, one of the seven deadly sins, and Raymond himself is a godlike figure Robert happily worships. (Dafoe played a character named God in “Poor Things.”)
Richard’s idyllic life is disrupted when, like Abraham in the Old Testament, his god tells him to sacrifice someone. Richard can’t do it and, as in another Genesis story, he is cast out of Eden.
Plemons gives a career-best performance in this tale, plumbing the depths of desperation and revealing all the awful things he did to stay in good graces. He impresses with chameleon-like changes in the other two stories, but his performance as Richard is probably what earned him the best actor award at this year’s Cannes.
“Kinds of Kindness” starts falling apart with its second story, “R.M.F. Is Flying,” an underwritten paean to paranoia. Daniel (Plemons) is a cop whose wife, Liz (Stone), has been reported lost at sea. After weeks missing, she returns to her loving husband, who immediately suspects she’s an impostor. For starters, her feet are too big, and she can’t remember intimate details about their marriage.
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Not even scenes of group sex and cooked body parts can save this section, though Plemons’s performance switches seamlessly from victim to abuser and Athie is good as Daniel’s concerned best friend.
Plemons takes a supporting role in “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” giving the last tale’s lead to Stone. They’re part of a sex cult run by Dafoe and Chau, where members drink their leaders’ tears and are regularly checked for purity in a way I can’t describe in this paper. Qualley gives this tale’s best performance as twins, one of whom may be a sought-after Messiah who can raise the dead.
Lanthimos ups the discomfort ante here, with graphic scenes of animal cruelty and sexual assault, before ending the film with a predictable — and predictably dark — O. Henry-style punch line.
Fans of Lanthimos’s works outside his Emma Stone movies will find “Kinds of Kindness” worth watching. As for the rest of us: You’ll start out clapping along with “Sweet Dreams,” but by the end, you’ll be singing Peggy Lee’s immortal question, “Is That All There Is?”
★★
KINDS OF KINDNESS
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Written by Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou. Starring Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Margaret Qualley, Joe Alwyn, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, Willem Dafoe, Yorgos Stefanakos. At AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, Coolidge Corner Theatre, suburbs. 164 minutes. R (gore, rape, murder, nudity, animal cruelty, profanity)
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.
