Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos have gotten their butts up and worked, even though these days it seems like nobody wants to. The actor-director duo are back with their second movie in a year, fresh off four Oscar wins for Poor Things , including a Lead
Actress award for Stone. Previously, the two collaborated on Bleat (2022) and The Favourite (2019); the newest one, Kinds of Kindness , is a “triptych fable,” the official summary reads, that follows three characters: a man “without choice” attempting to gain control of his life, a policeman reuniting with his wife who was missing at sea, and a woman searching for someone with a special spiritual ability. Stone peels through a nondescript urban landscape in the first
trailer. Shots of a dead body getting dragged through a dated hallway and Margaret Qualley slapping Jesse Plemons flicker by. Hunter Schafer performs a ritual in an examination room. Hong Chau licks somebody’s bare back. Willem Dafoe smiles in black-and-white. A person in a wheelchair falls over. Mamoudou Athie is just there. It’s unclear what’s going on. “Isn’t it wonderful?” Stone says in voice-over. Certainly for anyone who didn’t have the patience to wait even a year for another Lanthimos droll
comedy. Kinds of Kindness arrives June 21.