Yorgos Lanthimos gets Emma Stone and the whole band back together in Kinds Of Kindness trailer
Kinds Of Kindness, starring Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Jesse Plemons, premieres in theaters June 21
Film News Kinds of Kindness
Sweet dreams are made of this: Yorgos Lanthimos has brought his merry band of weirdos, including Best Actress winner Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, and Joe Alwyn, back together for a new picture. Kinds Of Kindness, which premieres in theaters June 21, also adds a perfect crew of newcomers to Lanthimos’ repertory: Jesse Plemons, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer. The new trailer for the film doesn’t give away much, but it does do a good job of drumming up excitement for this stellar cast.
Previously titled And, Kinds Of Kindness is an anthology film, meaning it tells not one but three stories. The synopsis describes it as a “triptych fable, following a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing-at-sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.”
This is not the kind of trailer that gives away the whole plot of the movie. Instead it’s brief flashes of moments that will whet your appetite for Lanthimos’ signature strangeness: Stone getting groovy, Chau licking someone’s stomach, Qualley straight-faced and slapping Plemons across the face. (Not pictured: Stone slapping Dafoe across the face, which they did 20 takes of, despite Dafoe not even being on camera for it.) Aesthetically, it couldn’t be more different from Poor Things, which heightened its period setting with surreal, colorful set design. Here, the mise-en-scène is the gritty, unbeautiful contemporary reality (though like Poor Things, one portion of the film appears to be in black-and-white). “This is it, the moment of truth,” Stone narrates over these disparate clips. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
Kinds Of Kindness was written by Efthymis Filippou, with whom Lanthimos collaborated on Dogtooth, Alps, The Lobster, and Killing Of A Sacred Deer. This is also the fourth collaboration between Lanthimos and Stone (After Poor Things, The Favourite, and the silent short film Bleat). Speaking with The Guardian in December 2023, Lanthimos confirmed that Kinds Of Kindness is “a contemporary film, set in the US—three different stories, with four or five actors who play one part in each story, so they all play three different parts. It was almost like making three films, really.” He added, “It’s great to be working again with Emma. It makes it so much easier to have someone there who trusts you so much, and who you trust so much.”
14 Comments
I love Lanthimos’s movies, but I’m glad someone apparently hid the fisheye lens from him.
Everyone knows the best directors use fisheye lenses
This is what every movie trailer should be. Don’t tell me the plot throughout the movie. Don’t tell me the plot at all. Leave things mysterious and intriguing so I’m compelled to go see the movie. Make the trailer short, not over 2 minutes or closer to 3 minutes. Show some interesting or beautiful imagery and the great actors. I don’t want to know the story before I see the movie; I want to be surprised, so there’s a greater chance that I’m delighted when I experience it. Conversely, I could be disappointed. But that last is an acceptable risk for the first.Anyway, this trailer reminded me of PTA’s Magnolia and the trailer to Malick’s Knight of Cups. So, with that, and all of the above, it’s a great one.
For the movies you’re referencing, this works. I don’t need a Fast and Furious trailer to be this cryptic, though.
Do we even need trailers for stuff like Fast & the Furious?
The trailer for the Coens’ A Serious Man hits all those notes, and is a goddamn masterpiece. (The whole movie’s great too of course.)Edited to add, now that I’ve watched this trailer, agreed, this is what a trailer should do.
The “Next week on Mad Men” cuts were always hilariously vague.
Agreed. These days the teaser trailers are the only ones I watch because they don’t give away the movie’s plot.
I wonder what the trailer for Gremlins 2 would look like under this rule.
The wedding scene, uncut, in its entirety.
I like going into a movie with few expectations, but a movie that can be ruined by its trailer prolly ain’t that good in the first place
The rotting corpse of the AV Club was sold yesterday.
Can’t believe what a ridiculous flex it is to come out swinging with another one this soon after a masterpiece like Poor Things. What a legend.
This is a terrific cast. Bonus points for keeping Jesse Plemmons employed.I’m still kinda stunned that Zach Gilford isn’t getting more work.