KINDS OF KINDNESS

KINDS OF KINDNESS…. 😩

I wasn’t entirely convinced by POOR THINGS, tbh, and I think this is a massive step down for Yorgas Lanthimos and many miles away from the promise of DOGTOOTH.  He is very talented, very charismatic and very clever, indeed, but I get the impression he’s not quite so talented, charismatic or clever as he thinks he is.  #hubris

On her promotional tour, Emma Stone shares a story about videoing herself doing a kooky dance in the green room of POOR THINGS and sending it to Yorgas Lanthimos, and it was so brilliantly, anarchically hilarious that he insisted on including the moves in KINDS OF KINDNESS.  Well, let me spare you the suspense: the dance is in the 163rd minute of a 164 minute film, as the end credits roll, and it has absolutely no business being there, disconnected as it is with the characters or any of the hodge-podge of narrative elements in the film.  Including the dance is a prime example of myopic self-congratulation, navel-gazing and an inability to say (or hear) “No!”

The weird and wonderful alchemy of successful filmmaking is impossible to nail down, and KINDS OF KINDNESS demonstrates that it doesn’t matter if you have all of the best ingredients (and this film has the wagyu beef of ingredients in Jesse Plemons, imo) if you haven’t done the work on the recipe or or if you take it out of the oven when it’s half-baked.   ⭐️⭐️⭐️