Kinds of Kindness (2024)
After the success of Poor Things, I think it is pretty great to see Lanthimos make something like this. He hasn’t turned mainstream at least, and that the reactions to this movie is so divisive had me intrigued. Even though I ended up falling in the not really liking it camp, I still find Lanthimos a name worth following.
His movies all seem to revolve around a common theme of humans trying to conform to others expectations or societal norms. And of course how all that is tied to control by others. In their own absurd nihilistic way. This is most apparent in the first part of this three part anthology movie and it is also the one that makes the most sense. But I found all of them to be mostly uninteresting, as the narratives gets too hung up in their own metaphors that any sliver of relationship to reality is gone, and even though they all have the “what the hell is going on”-thing going for them, I couldn’t find myself to care much either way.
I keep comparing his movies to Dogtooth which so far has been the only one that really got me thinking. Where weirdness and inexplicity became what made it intriguing and interesting. In this it both too normal and too weird at the same time. The concept is not complete like in The Lobster and the various shock effects left no impact as they didn’t seem part of the rest of the world like it Dogtooth.
I am sure there are many clever deep dives and metaphorical interpretations of this, but I find no reason why I should care.
Rating: 2