Popcorn Perspectives with Danny Minton
Week of June 24, 2024
Kinds of Kindness
Rated R for strong sexual content, language, full nudity and strong violent content
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 75%
In Theaters
Hot off his highly successful Oscar run with Poor Things, writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos returns to theaters with this triptych of stories, all with the same revolving cast which includes Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Hong Chau and Margaret Qualley. The stories each revolve around control in relationships, however the interconnection is very much up to the interpretation of the viewer. The first tale revolves around Plemons, who is asked by his boss (Dafoe) to commit a senseless act of violence or be out of his good graces. The second finds Plemons distraught when his wife goes missing on a work trip only to find that he doesn’t think it’s actually her upon her return. The third finds Plemons and Stone as colleagues working for a sex cult led by Dafoe, looking for a prophesied messiah. I’m not saying The Favourite and Poor Things weren’t weird, as they absolutely were, but compared to his earlier works like the Lobster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, they were quite normal narratives. Here he seems to be going back to a world that is left up to the audience to decide on its meaning and value. Is it about relationships? Is it about religion? There is nothing given easily here. At first I even thought he was messing with us as the story was just that odd and elusive. But once I got into it, it didn’t make more sense, but it certainly was entertaining. It helps that the acting is top-notch, but it helps more that all three stories serve as grand dark comedies. If you are like myself and much of the audience I saw it with, you will find yourself laughing out loud (many time out of pure discomfort) at scenes that you feel you shouldn’t be laughing at. In this, its sense of humor is both perverse and pervasive, making the film rather enjoyable when maybe it shouldn’t be. Will we be circling around this project again come awards season? Probably not. While the acting and production are definitely worthy, I doubt the reception will be strong enough to bring home any trophies. But for fans of either Lanthimos or absurdist movies in general, this should find itself a popular enough film in certain circles. B+
Daddio
Rated R for language throughout, sexual material and brief graphic nudity
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%
In Theaters
This low-budget indie stars Dakota Johnson as a New Yorker returning from a trip who gets into Sean Penn’s cab going from the airport to her apartment in Manhattan. When the cab gets stopped in traffic, the two get into an intense conversation about relationships where Penn gets a load off his chest while serving as a pseudo-therapist doling out wisdom to a young woman in great need of receiving it. What should be a dull, real-time story, turns out to be an interesting movie that circles around ideas that go mostly unsaid in polite society, as two people, who both know they won’t see each other ever again, open up in ways they could never do with a more familiar party. Definitely not a date movie nor a project that will find a big box office, but it will be interesting to see who the audience will be, if it finds an audience at all. But for the lone person who finds it, there a worth-while 100-minute journey to be enjoyed here. B