This movie is not for the faint of heart. Yorgos Lanthimos’ last two projects have been highly critically acclaimed including last year’s Poor Things which was an award-season darling. Yorgos decided to ride that wave into what is clearly a massive passion project for him. This was an anthology movie with three separate stories involving the same core of actors.

I compare this movie to Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch. A passion project from a director who had earned the chance to make whatever they wanted. The anthology aspect obviously makes this an even easier comparison. Both directors also have a very unique style and seemed to go full boar on that style in these respective films which really worked for some and… didn’t quite work for others.

I am a much bigger Wes Anderson fan than I am a Yorgos fan and I didn’t love The French Dispatch. Similarly, I wasn’t a massive fan of Kinds of Kindness… it was all just a bit too much for me. There were some really good moments/scenes and for the most part the main trio of actors- Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and Willem Dafoe- were all excellent. However, as a whole, it didn’t quite work for me. I feel like the easiest way to review this in more depth is story-by-story so I will do that in non-spoiler fashion below.

Kinds of Kindness: 3/5 Stars

Part 1: The Death of R.M.F.

This story was a very good commentary on the state of the modern workplace and society as a whole. It did a good job of demonstrating the type of pressure that the average person is under to “fit in” and in the workplace specifically to please your superior. Jesse Plemons was fantastic in this story and carried the weight here for me. This was a good way to ease into what this anthology would be but didn’t blow me away. Story-wise it was the worst of the three for me.

Part 2: R.M.F. is Flying

In terms of the plot, this was the story that had me the most hooked. I personally would have watched a full-length film with this storyline and these characters. This story explores a world where Emma Stone’s character has gone missing on an expedition but returns home after being presumed dead. Her husband, played by Jesse Plemons, begins to doubt that the woman who has returned is his actual wife.

This story might have the best acting of the three chapters. Jesse Plemons had another powerhouse performance as the paranoid husband. Emma Stone does a fantastic job as well. The story also does a great job of scene-by-scene making you, the viewer, unsure of how it will end.

I won’t spoil the ending but you are constantly going back and forth between believing Jesse Plemons’ character that Emma Stone is indeed some kind of clone/copy and believing Emma Stone’s character that it is her husband who is going mad.

Part 3: R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich

Part 2 had the best acting of the three stories but overall I thought this was the best plot start-to-finish. Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone play members of a cult led by Willem Dafoe and Hong Chau. The goal of this cult is essentially to find a “chosen one” that is meant to fit a certain description and will have the ability to raise people from the dead.

This story had the most depth to the characters, particularly Emma Stone’s character. This was by far Emma Stone’s best performance across the three stories and she stole the show here. It’s a little unfair but I actually think I would have liked this even more as the first story of the anthology. By the time we got into the meat of this story, I was truthfully ready for this movie to be over which was a bit of a disservice to what I thought was the most interesting chapter.

Overall, the acting was great and Yorgos’ style is always interesting but it didn’t totally work for me. I always encourage people to see anything they can in theaters but with some of the other movies out right now I don’t think you should make this a priority unless you are an absolute Yorgos-head.