Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
Review
Pop Culture Happy Hour
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GLEN WELDON, HOST:
The new film "Kinds Of Kindness" is a surprisingly weird and dark and bleak movie to come out now in the middle of summer, but I dug it a lot, so think of it as the summer movie for all of us who hate summer. It's directed by Yorgos Lanthimos of "Poor Things," "The Favourite" and "The Lobster." It re-teams him with "Poor Things" stars Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe, along with Jesse Plemons. Each actor plays different characters in three different stories, which all involve someone going to extreme measures to regain something they have lost. I'm Glen Weldon, and today we're talking about "Kinds Of Kindness" on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. Joining me today is NPR film critic Bob Mondello. Hey, Bob.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Good to be here.
WELDON: Also with us is Philadelphia Inquirer's arts and entertainment editor and film critic Bedatri D. Choudhury. Hey, Bedatri.
BEDATRI D CHOUDHURY: Hi, Glen. Hi, Bob.
MONDELLO: Hey.
WELDON: Hey there. Let's talk about this very tough film to talk about. So here's the game plan. We'll go around and give our overall thoughts, then tackle each of the three stories in turn. We will not be spoiling their endings, except maybe to note here at the top that this is a Yorgos Lanthimos film, so if you're expecting those endings to be happy, you done walked into the wrong theater. I'm sorry. "Kinds Of Kindness" is in theaters now. Bedatri, kick us off. What did you think?
CHOUDHURY: So, first things first, it's been less than 12 hours between me watching this film and sitting here. And true to a Lanthimos experience, I don't have a clue what to make of it.
(LAUGHTER)
CHOUDHURY: But, yes, there were parts of the film when I laughed very loud, when I was very uncomfortable. I cringed too much. And, like, sometimes I just wanted to disappear, you know? But I would say, having watched "The Favourite" and "Poor Things" in the last couple of years, I'd say, welcome back, Yorgos Lanthimos. I'm not sure we missed you, but welcome back.
(LAUGHTER)
MONDELLO: We haven't had time yet.
WELDON: Some of us. Some of us missed him, especially early Lanthimos. We'll get to that. Bob, what did you think?
MONDELLO: I had a ball. I was worried that I was - it's been a long day, and, you know, all that. I just thought it's almost three hours long, and...
WELDON: Yep.
MONDELLO: ...I'm, you know, ill-fed, and I'm not going to make it through the thing with my eyes open. And that was certainly not a problem. I enjoy almost anything that takes me some place I wasn't expecting, and this took me a bunch of places I wasn't expecting.
WELDON: Yeah, that is a thing we have to talk about at some point, about how, you know, film critics - we might tend to be overvaluing novelty. I think sometimes...
MONDELLO: Yeah.
WELDON: ...That's a trap we might fall into, but I don't know about that though, 'cause I had a great time at this, except for a couple of moments, like, when I didn't have a good time at this. And I'm reasonably certain that during those moments I was not having a good time, Lanthimos was not wanting me to have a good time. I think...
MONDELLO: Fair. Fair.
WELDON: ...Can we say that?
MONDELLO: Yeah.
WELDON: It does feel like an intentional pushback on his part against all those critics and audience members who have ever described movies like "The Favourite" and "Poor Things" as whimsical.
(LAUGHTER)
WELDON: I get the sense that whimsy is not a thing he's aiming for, and when he hears it applied to his films, he's like, nope, because those two films were made with a very British sense of humor. The actors deliver their lines with access to the full range of human emotions, which, you know, is filtered through a British sensibility so a little tamped down. But if you go back to his roots with, like, "Dogtooth" and "The Lobster," they all have the same kind of flat, affectless...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah. Yep.
WELDON: ...Delivery in his early films. This is hovering somewhere in between. It's informed by his later works. There's a little bit more breathing room, but there is still the Lanthimos arch quality, a kind of stylized, very mannered aspect that always reminds you - or at least reminds me - that I'm watching constructs, chess pieces. Like, the artifice of his films are always front of mind.
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: But I think the intention there is to isolate us from feeling the full weight of the dire, often cruel consequences these people experience. Plus, there's a question of whether the filmmaker is simply presenting these characters without moral judgment or if he's just slathering the film with moral judgment because there is cruelty on display in this film and in many of his others.
MONDELLO: Just for a second, can we talk about the title?
CHOUDHURY: Yes.
WELDON: Yeah.
CHOUDHURY: It's a cruel film. It's not a kind - I wanted to stop Glen and say...
WELDON: Yeah.
CHOUDHURY: Yes, cruelty, not kindness (laughter).
MONDELLO: Right.
WELDON: Yeah.
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: Kinds of cruelty.
MONDELLO: But it's not like "The Lobster," where there's a logical reason that that movie is called "The Lobster.".
CHOUDHURY: Or "The Favourite."
MONDELLO: Or "Poor Things.".
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: But, Bedatri, can you unpack a little bit more about what you mean about the cruelty? 'Cause that's a question it left me with.
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: We don't go into this movie expecting happy endings. We don't necessarily expect the degree of cruelty we get. Is that satisfying? Can something with that approach feel satisfying narratively, finished narratively?
CHOUDHURY: Yeah, I mean, you know, I was also thinking, if cruelty underlines all kinds of kindness - like, you know, people who are kind, who we expect kindness from - is it cruel of us to demand this kindness from people? Like, you know, and, of course, like, it's a Lanthimos film. So you will ask yourself these questions like you ask yourself questions about your relationship when you watch "Lobster." I watched it with someone I'd met on a dating app, and we were like, oh, are we doomed?
(LAUGHTER)
CHOUDHURY: You know, and I think a lot of critics have said it's a fable, and you make of it what you will. And I think that's classic Lanthimos. And, you know, people are like, this is back to form, like "Dogtooth," which I really love. I can't say I loved this film as much. And I think there is some lack of binding between these three distinct sections, even though they're, you know, mostly the same actors playing similar-ish characters. But I did think, narratively, there was a little lack of cohesion. And maybe I'm just spoiled by "The Favourite" or "Poor Things." But I missed a little bit of that glue.
MONDELLO: Anytime there's a film that breaks itself into segments like this, it is a problem. There's always a disconnect between how you receive one of them and how you receive the other, and then you're kind of stuck. And that happens here. Instead of building something that then extends, he truncates it at about the moment that you want it to extend. It's a very clever device for him because it allows him to end on a really strange note for each of the pieces. It isn't satisfying in the way that, you know, Aristotle said, a show should be with rising action and all that.
WELDON: Yeah. Whatever rising-falling action happens, I guess, in a meta way. But when you make this connective tissue, which you're forced to make the connective tissue between the stories - but let's deal with them in order. So the first film, a successful businessman played by Jesse Plemons is locked into a kind of psychosexual bondage with his boss, played by Willem Dafoe. Here's a bit of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "KINDS OF KINDNESS")
WILLEM DAFOE: (As Raymond) Were you waiting long?
JESSE PLEMONS: (As Robert) No, 15 minutes or so...
DAFOE: (As Raymond) Your hair's nice like that. Don't get it cut. Let it grow a little longer. And you've lost more weight, I think. Skinny men - the most ridiculous thing there is.
WELDON: So yes, in this film, his boss rules his life, tells him what to do, how to dress, what to eat, when to make love with his wife. And Plemons goes along with it until he doesn't, which causes Dafoe to set him free, and how Plemons' character deals with that freedom is what the story tends to be about. All of these stories are about what happens when you no longer accept the strictures of a well-defined human relationship. In this one, it's boss-worker. In another one, it's man-wife. In the other, it's belief-belief system. So what did you guys make of this first one?
MONDELLO: Jesse Plemons is amazing. Can I just say that right now?
CHOUDHURY: He is. Yeah. Absolutely.
WELDON: Hot take.
MONDELLO: He's kind of breathtaking to watch. I actually think of him a little bit the way I think of Philip Seymour Hoffman. In this one, he's so subservient and so willing to go along, and it's so hard for him not to. I thought it was a really compelling character study for the longest time. And I kept wondering why the other characters were even there. But then it becomes clear. So...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah. And then, you know, I think Jesse Plemons makes the claustrophobia so evident. You know, he can be doing different things, but there's so much value to his quietness here and in most roles that he plays. And yeah, I mean, I echo Bob. But also, you know, to Glen's anti-summer film point, you know, this is a tirade against skinny men. So don't come...
WELDON: (Laughter).
CHOUDHURY: ...Here looking for your summer bods (laughter).
WELDON: Yeah.
CHOUDHURY: But, you know, it's always an indictment. If you look at a fable, like, it's always talking to some kind of social phenomenon which Lanthimos has a problem with, or, like, the world should have a problem with. And I think it also speaks to, you know, there is this part where Jesse Plemons, where his life is no longer controlled by Willem Dafoe - just doesn't know what to do with his life. And he craves that dominance. He craves that control. He just doesn't want control over his life. And that kind of spoke to me because we're all, like, you know, as someone who loves routines, I was like, oh, my God, should I - what am I without my routines? So I think, you know, those are the kinds of questions it makes you ask. And I think the first one is - I shouldn't say my favorite. Favorite is a weird thing to say when it's this film...
WELDON: Oh, sure.
CHOUDHURY: ...But I think this was the most tight kind of storytelling.
WELDON: Yeah. I mean, if it is my favorite, it's my favourite with a U, of course. But this is the one that is most apprehendable, I think, of the three because there is something kind of schematic about it. And I'm realizing I like this one probably the most because of this discussion. This has something of a kind of a "Twilight Zone" episode structure in terms of plot, in the sense that this feels like out-and-out satire.
MONDELLO: Right.
WELDON: Take that, capitalism. This is what capitalism is. This is the one that felt most satisfying to me in terms of plot structure 'cause we arrive at the end. The ending, which we will not describe, feels perfect in that surprising but inevitable way. I dug this one.
So in the second story, Jesse Plemons plays a cop whose wife, played by Emma Stone, returns from being lost at sea for a while. Plemons grows increasingly convinced she's not his real wife.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "KINDS OF KINDNESS")
EMMA STONE: (As Liz) Can I have a cigarette?
PLEMONS: (As Daniel) Sure.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PLEMONS: (As Daniel) I didn't know you smoked, Liz.
STONE: (As Liz) I don't. I've never smoked. Can you believe that? I've never even tried. Just really felt like a cigarette.
WELDON: So yes, he proceeds to test his wife who has just returned. She goes along with it in ways that are kind of ambiguous. What'd you guys think of this one?
CHOUDHURY: This is the one I watched, and I was like, oh, I'm supposed to eat dinner after this. Will I be able to? This is the one that's, like, the most - how should I say it? It's the most disgusting one. You know, I was trying to look for a nicer word. It's very bodily. And Lanthimos' films, especially "Poor Things," always makes me ponder over the idea of consent, especially sexual consent. And we see more of that in the third bit, but this is where Emma Stone, you know, starts embracing what film critic Samuel Adams calls her freak era. And honestly, I'm not sure if I'm here for the film. I'm here for Emma Stone's freak era, 100%.
WELDON: There we go.
MONDELLO: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of cringe-worthy stuff. I rarely cover my eyes at movies, and there was a moment where I did.
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
MONDELLO: So in this one, it's going to take me quite a while to process the scene that I turned away from.
WELDON: Yeah.
MONDELLO: This one did strike me as sort of problematic. And although we can't talk about the ending, I couldn't tell you what the ending actually was. I mean, if I tried to describe it, I would be wrong, I think.
WELDON: Yeah, I mean, you're right, Bob. We are still processing this. But this is helping me process this because I think this is the one I had the most trouble with from a purely narrative perspective because the point of view shifts in a way that didn't strike me as completely in control, kind of in a messy way. We're in Plemons' head at the beginning. He's viewing Stone as suspect. Then without any kind of fanfare or any indication, we shift into Stone's perspective. And then, at the very end, we shift back to his. That felt kind of rudderless to me. And when so much depends on point of view, whenever you're feeling like, what am I looking at here? - I feel like it's not firing on all cylinders there.
CHOUDHURY: But I've got to shout out Mamoudou Athie, who plays Jesse Plemons' co-worker in this little segment, and I'm here for him. Again, like, I'm saying this a lot, but he's...
WELDON: No.
CHOUDHURY: ...Such an incredible actor, and I hope to see more of him in bigger, meatier roles.
WELDON: Radiating empathy in a Lanthimos...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: ...Film is not a...
CHOUDHURY: Right.
WELDON: He's very...
CHOUDHURY: While watching a sex tape. Let me just put that out there.
WELDON: Exactly.
CHOUDHURY: Yes (laughter).
WELDON: So in the third and final story, Emma Stone plays a woman who's left her life as a wife and mother to join a cult that is searching for a messiah-like figure until her past returns to complicate things, as the past often does. They're trying to hunt down this prophesied figure with the power to raise the dead, but Stone's character can't stay away from the life she left behind. What'd you guys make of this one?
CHOUDHURY: I think this was the hardest for me. Like, it just...
WELDON: OK.
CHOUDHURY: So drawn out. Again, I don't know if it was drawn out in terms of time in the sense, was it longer than the first two halves? I don't know. But it just seemed like a very tenuous kind of storytelling. And again, like, you know, we see Emma Stone struggle between these two worlds. And then we see her husband, who's played by Joe Alwyn, who is equally as terrible a person as the people running the cult. So this was kind of a little more tedious for me. And Margaret Qualley - I'm not sure what she's doing here. But again, like, this had more of a structure but was a little tedious, in my opinion.
WELDON: Qualley's giving a very natural, unaffected performance...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: ...In a film marked by lots of affected performances, but, yeah. Bob, what do you think?
MONDELLO: I guess what I liked about this segment was Emma Stone. Her emerging from the house at one point and seeing her husband and daughter, I thought, was one of the most gorgeous four seconds of film...
WELDON: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...I've seen in forever - four seconds of acting. It was just like, oh, my God. That said so much. I think she is - I'm not saying anything too terribly remarkable here. She's a fantastic actress. But there are moments in this movie, in this particular segment, where she's doing five or six different things at the same time and doing them gorgeously. And I just thought, ooh - also, apparently driving a car 'cause she...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...Kept getting out of it...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...After swerving, and I thought, did she really do that?
WELDON: Oh, there was cuts. There was always cuts.
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: But, like, this is the one I'm going to need the most help from you all to kind of process because I liked how almost conventional, how plot-heavy this one was where things get planted, and then they recur. She drives a car like a maniac. That comes back. Hong Chau licks cult members. That comes back. An incident we see in flashback - that comes back.
But let me tell you, I talk a big game about being above the petty moral instructions and hide-bound conventions of storytelling. But I did pull back a few times in this segment especially, where this dollhouse that Lanthimos is building feels the need to bring in things from outside it. A man sexually assaults a woman. A dog gets hurt. Now, they're not the same.
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: I'm not saying - I'm not equating them. I'm just saying...
MONDELLO: Good.
WELDON: ...These grittier things happen. And I thought, you know, Yorgos, my man, I thought we were just having kind of mean-spirited, jokey fun over here, my guy. All kinds of cruelties are happening onscreen. But it's those instances I felt like I think you're cheating. You know, I had this reflexive, well, that's too far, and you don't get to do that. You know, I had my mom's reaction to pretty much every film she's ever seen...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: ...Because I think you feel the need to do that, to bring that stuff in to ramp up our emotional reaction. But it's a cheat. You know? You've got this Pinewood Derby car, and you put a nitrous tank on it. It doesn't feel - are we in this world of construct, or are we trying to bring in something real? Do you guys understand what I'm going with there?
CHOUDHURY: Yeah, yeah. And I think that was my problem with it, too. Like, you know, I think it's just too much of switching between lanes that's happening and - which is why I think this was the most difficult segment to just stick with.
MONDELLO: I did not. Maybe I just followed Emma Stone.
WELDON: Yeah.
MONDELLO: I was on her character's arc and was distressed about what was happening to her. I didn't have trouble with this one narratively at all. I did with the middle one. It seemed to me an odd one to end with. I hesitate to call the ending unsatisfying because it is kind of ultimately satisfying, which says more about me, I guess...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...Than...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...I actually want to say.
CHOUDHURY: The first question I'd ask is, what else do you want? How else do you want this to end?
WELDON: Yeah, 'cause, again, satisfying is such a weird term to use here...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: ...Because it's not going to satisfy you the way that, you know, traditional plot structure would or...
MONDELLO: Right.
WELDON: ...Traditional characterization would. I guess the question to ask is, does it accomplish what it sets out to accomplish?
CHOUDHURY: And who knows what it sets out to accomplish, Glen?
WELDON: See; that's the thing, Bedatri.
MONDELLO: Right. I mean, the thing with Lanthimos - you don't know for sure what he's trying to do...
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...Necessarily. And so, I mean, I think with some of his films - I was confident I knew what he was doing in "The Lobster," for instance. And I wasn't always confident in this one that I knew what he was doing. He's for sure taking me someplace that I haven't thought about before and, therefore, is interesting and worth going.
CHOUDHURY: Yeah. He's, of course, the master of taking everything to an extreme. Like, you know, there is the heroic question of, how far will you go for the one you love? And then Yorgos Lanthimos comes in and says, this far. Do you like it? And, no, I don't like it. It's - I don't want to see that part of human nature being put in front of me in every film. But I agree with you, Bob. I think I may not like this. I still don't know. I still haven't been able to make up my mind. But I may not like this reincarnation, but I cannot say that there is a certain level of mastery with which he tells these stories.
WELDON: That's what makes this such a fascinating movie to come out in the middle of summer because, Bob, most people are going to movies in the summer want to go to places they've already been.
CHOUDHURY: Yeah.
WELDON: That's why there's an "Inside Out 2." That's why there's a "Bad Boys 4." They just want to turn their brains off and sit in some air conditioning. And this is not a movie to turn your brain or your heart or your spleen off. It is a movie to experience and to go someplace new. Well, tell us what you think about "Kinds Of Kindness." You heard what we think or at least what we think we think. We're still not sure. Find us at Facebook at facebook.com/pchh. Up next, What Is Making Us Happy This Week.
Now it is time for our favorite segment of this week and every week, What Is Making Us Happy This Week. Bob Mondello, what is making you happy this week?
MONDELLO: Because we're dealing with a triptych here, I decided that a trilogy would be an interesting thing to go to, and I went back to one that just floored me 20 years ago. This is the 20th anniversary of the release of the novel "Forty Signs Of Rain." It was part of Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capitol series that was a series of novels about climate change. And he's known as a hard science fiction writer. He writes really about the science of what's going on. And so I wanted to see how well something that was written 20 years ago about climate change would hold up. And it's scary how well it holds up. I mean, it feels like what's actually happening, and it's riveting. And anyway, they are - again, it's Kim Stanley Robinson, "Forty Signs Of Rain," "Fifty Degrees Below." And the third one is "Sixty Days And Counting," and they are truly remarkable sci fi.
WELDON: Thank you very much, Bob Mondello. Bedatri D. Choudhury, what is making you happy this week?
CHOUDHURY: In the spirit of triptychs, I'll say three things that are making me happy this week. One is Emma Stone's freak dance in that last segment. I will...
WELDON: Sure.
CHOUDHURY: ...Not accept...
WELDON: Yes.
CHOUDHURY: ...A film without Emma Stone doing a freak dance ever again. No. 2, it's summer. Mangoes are making me happy. And...
WELDON: Oh, sure.
CHOUDHURY: No. 3 is this book by Khushbu Shah. It's called "Amrikan: 125 Recipes From The Indian American Diaspora." It's recipes from Indian American homes in this country. So it's a lot of mishmash of ingredients. You know, I grew up in India, but I've had cousins growing up in the U.S. who eat dosa with peanut butter. I could not make sense of it, but - so Khushbu's book is a lot about using shortcuts, using American ingredients to make Indian recipes.
What I love about the book, apart from all of these things that I just said - that she really goes into busting some myths about Indian food. Like, no, it's not always spicy. It's spiced, but it's not spicy. You know, it's not complex, and anyone can make it - you know, that kind of thing. But also, what I really, really respect about this book is she touches about caste and the way in which caste defines how people eat, what foods they have access to. I mean, you know, it's still a recipe book. It's still a very fun book and beautifully produced book. And I'm here for it. I think that's my summer phrase. I'm here for it. So I'm here for Emma Stone's freak era. I'm here for mangos. And I'm here for Khushbu Shah's "Amrikan," which is available wherever you get your books. It's published by Norton.
WELDON: Oh, fantastic. I have just ordered said book. Thank you very much, Bedatri D. Choudhury. What's making me happy this week? There is a small film called "The Jessica Cabin." It's currently streaming on prime, where it's listed under horror. Don't believe it. It's not horror. It is a ghost story. It's set in an Airbnb somewhere in the desert. It's haunted by a couple of queer ghosts, a man and a woman. The guy is played by Daniel Montgomery, who wrote and directed it. So different people come through the Airbnb until at one point, the Montgomery character becomes kind of smitten with one half of a gay couple who's staying there. It's funny. It's smart. Its approach to the afterlife isn't loaded down with lore. The less you know about it going in, the better. That's "The Jessica Cabin," which is currently streaming on Prime and on demand other places.
And that is what is making me happy this week. And if you want links for what we recommended plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org/popculturenewsletter. And that brings us to the end of our show. Bob Mondello, Bedatri D. Choudhury, thank you so much for being here, helping me figure out this movie.
MONDELLO: It was great fun.
CHOUDHURY: Thank you for returning the favor, Glen and Bob. This was great.
MONDELLO: Agreed.
CHOUDHURY: I still don't know what I watched, but hey. You know, I had fun.
WELDON: This episode was produced by Rommel Wood and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy. And Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. I'm Glen Weldon, and we'll see you all next week.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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