Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action, says Auric Goldfinger. By this measure, Kinds of Kindness is determinedly hostile. Yorgos Lanthimos’s follow-up to Poor Things contains three grotesque short stories about domination and submission, returning to the themes so clearly articulated in his debut about family madness, Dogtooth, 15 years ago.
Lanthimos’s last two films, The Favourite and Poor Things, were big period productions, full of jokes and spectacle, scripted by the Australian comedy writer Tony McNamara, and they won him mass audiences and many awards. For Kinds of Kindness he has returned to his long-term collaborator Efthimis Filippou, and the result will disconcert his more recent fans.
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