If Yorgos Lanthimos becomes a household name, the world will be a better place for it. The director of a whole lot of fascinating films—Dogtooth, Poor Things, The Favourite—has reteamed with star Emma Stone (fresh from her Oscar win for Poor Things) for Kinds of Kindness, a movie that may or may not have any fantastical elements, but is almost definitely bound to be fantastic.
The synopsis is not hugely forthcoming:
Kinds of Kindness is a triptych fable, following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.
The trailer is full of extremely brief and intriguing scenes that tell us basically nothing—the same goes for Stone’s brief bit of dialogue. But they add up to an unnerving feeling (and the song choice is great).
Stone stars in the film alongside her Poor Things colleagues Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley; The Favourite‘s Joe Alwyn; and Lanthimos newcomers Hong Chau (The Menu), Mamoudou Athie (Archive 81), Jesse Plemons (Black Mirror), and Hunter Schafer (Euphoria).
What is especially intriguing, at least if you are a fan of Lanthimos’s delightfully weird earlier film Dogtooth, is that the script is a collaboration with Efthimis Filippou, Lanthimos’s writing partner for Dogtooth, Killing of a Sacred Deer, and The Lobster.
Kinds of Kindness is in select theaters June 21st.
