KINDS OF KINDNESS (2024) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Yorgos Lanthimos
Emma Stone, Jesse Plemmons, Willem Dafoe,
Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Hunter Schafer
Yorgos Lanthimos follows up "Poor Things" with a trilogy of oddities in which the same actors play different roles in three loosely connected stories. In the first, Jesse Plemmons plays a corporate toady with Willem Dafoe as his godlike boss. In the second, Plemmons plays a cop who suspects his wife (Emma Stone) may not really be his wife. In the third, Plemmons and Stone are members of a cult, bombing around in a sporty Dodge Challenger and trying to find a woman with a specific set of attributes, who they hope will be able to raise the dead. It's all more strange than compelling, and the stories feel a little incomplete, but you don't want to look away. You'll probably miss something if you do, and with Lanthimos at the controls, you never know what that will be. Bonus highlight, if you stay all the way to the end: Stone's loopy, parking-lot dance routine.
