Culture Chat: ‘Kinds of Kindness’ is a movie so cruel it’s funny

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we talk about the very disturbing new film ‘Kinds of Kindness’. It is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, known for surreal movies such as ‘Poor Things’, ‘The Favourite’, and ‘The Lobster’. This film marks a return to dark, inaccessible weirdness for the Greek New Wave director. Is it grotesque in a bad or a good way? And do we like the ‘Lanthimos vibe’? Lilah is joined by film critic Nicolas Rapold and the FT’s Topher Forhecz to discuss.

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We love hearing from you. Lilah is on Instagram @lilahrap. We’re on X @lifeandartpod and on email at [email protected]. We are grateful for reviews on Apple and Spotify.

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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):

– Here’s the FT’s review of Kinds of Kindness, by Raphael Abraham: https://on.ft.com/3xBo4De

– An interview with Yorgos Lanthimos (2015), about ‘The Lobster’: https://on.ft.com/3VG7J8g

– Nicolas Rapold is on X @NicolasRapold. Follow him and his podcast ‘The Last Thing I Saw’, here: https://rapold.substack.com/

– Our episode ‘Is Poor Things A Feminist Film?’ is available here or wherever you listen.

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Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Life and Art from F.T. Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos, and this is our Friday chat show.
0:07.5	Today we are talking about the new film, Kinds of Kindness, which is in theaters now in the U.S. and the UK.
0:13.6	It's directed by Jorgos Lantimos, the Greek new wave director, who you may remember from poor things, the favorite, and the lobster.
0:21.2	This film, Kinds of Kindness, is a return to Weird for Yorgos. It stars Jesse Plemons, Emma
0:26.5	Stone, Willem Defoe, Margaret Qualley, and others, but as an ensemble cast. So each actor is
0:32.4	playing different characters in three different short stories. I have been waiting to, in fact,
0:37.4	this film for days, so let's just get into it. I am Lila, and if sweet dreams are made of these, then who am I to disagree? Joining me in New York, his wife has just returned from C, and they might want to eat each other. It's executive producer of podcasts at the F.T., including this one, our friend Toferhez. Hi, Tofer. Hello. Also joining us,
0:56.1	he wants a burger and nothing to drink. It's film critic and host of The Last Thing I Saw podcast,
1:01.4	Nicholas Rapald. Nick, welcome. Hello, surprisingly accurate. So I am going to start as usual
1:08.7	by asking what both of you thought of this film, top line.
1:12.8	I'll say more in a minute, but I would just like to get off my chest that I hated this movie desperately.
1:19.0	But that doesn't mean I think it was bad.
1:21.1	I just really didn't enjoy it.
1:23.5	Anyway, okay, go ahead, Tofer.
1:24.9	What did you think?
1:25.5	You did not bury the lead with that one.
1:28.4	What a way to start.
1:30.3	Yeah, so I was thinking about what you would say to a person who wasn't familiar with Joros Lantamos coming into this movie.
1:37.1	And I feel like you have to be okay with Jorgos Lantamos' thing, which we can get into.
1:44.4	But, you know, the movie starts with the Eurythmics playing,
1:47.8	Sweet Dreams are Made of These.
1:49.5	And there's a line, you know, some of them want to be abused.
	...

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