Kind of Kindness Cannes Reaction: Hot off last year’s major awards player, “Poor Things,” Yorgos Lanthimos is back! But what has his weird and wonderful mind cooked up for us this time? Well, Searchlight’s “Kinds of Kindness,” an anthology film no less, has just premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival to overall positive reviews. But are they glowing enough to be in contention for this year’s Palme d’Or? Well, read on to find out.
Kinds of Kindness debuts to positive reactions at Cannes
“Kinds of Kindness” marks the return of Lanthimos’s partnership with his writing partner, Efythmis Filippou (The Lobster, Dogtooth, Killing of a Sacred Deer). It follows three stories, with a stacked cast of Lanthimos regulars such as Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Margret Quailey, and newcomers to his growing list of collaborators, such as Jesse Plemons, Hong Chau, and Joe Alwyn.
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It isn’t a short film, clocking in at 2 hours 44 minutes, but the reception has been positive, although it faces steep competition for the Cannes Awards. Whilst Coppola’s “Megalopolis” and Agathe Riedinger’s “Wild Diamond” may have received mixed reactions, Andrea Arnold’s “Bird” and “The Girl With the Needle” also premiered to generally positive receptions. It currently stands at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes and 77 on Metacritic, with no negative or even mixed reviews on the website.
Willem Dafoe described the film as a “little closer to his earlier work,” less bombastic than “Poor Things” at least, but this has not perturbed Fionnuala Halligan from Screen Daily, commenting that the film is “profoundly puzzling” and “dizzyingly disturbing,” and whilst Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian was a little more critical, stating that the film doesn’t have a “superabundance of substance to go with the style,” but that the film was undeniably “elegant and overwhelming stylish.”
The film will continue its tours of festivals, premiering at the Sydney Film Festival in the coming weeks before its slated wide release on June 21st in the US and June 28th in the UK. Whilst it might not be a favorite for many, it is certainly another success in Lanthimos’ highly acclaimed career.
