If anyone is going into a new Yorgos Lanthimos and not expecting bizarre scenes and graphic violence – you haven’t been paying attention.
The director of Poor Things and The Favourite has reunited with Emma Stone yet again for his newest film Kinds of Kindness, after she won an Oscar for her role in Poor Things.
Stone stars in Kinds of Kindness alongside Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Joe Alwyn, Hong Chau, and a host of other big names.
The movie is an anthology film, featuring three different stories with the cast playing different characters in each.
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The new film, which released Friday, June 28, features perhaps Lanthimos’ most shockingly graphic sex scene yet.
Minor spoilers ahead for Kinds of Kindness.
In the second of the three films in the anthology, Stone plays a marine biologist who has been lost at sea after their boat is stranded.
Waiting for her at home, Jesse Plemons’ character goes to dinner with his best friend and coworker, played by Mamoudou Athie, and his wife, played by Margaret Qualley.
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After asking to ‘watch a tape’ with them, Athie and Qualley are reluctant, but give in and agree.
The film then makes a hard cut to the three of them, joined by Emma Stone – mid-orgy.
The scene is cut in a way that is shocking to the audience, suddenly confronted with near full-frontal nudity and the four of them … well, going at it is the only way it should be described.
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Kinds of Kindness is full of sexual scenes, with this perhaps being the most graphic of the film, but it’s run close by scenes from the third film of the three – involving Hong Chau and Willem Dafoe running a fluid-based sex cult.
Stone has spoken about her trust in Lanthimos when he is behind the camera, telling The Guardian: “I trust him beyond the trust I have had with any director – and I have worked with some great directors.
“I feel I can do anything with him. We just have something.”
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When discussing the sex scenes in Poor Things, director Yorgos Lanthimos said: “It would feel very disingenuous to tell this story about this character who is so free and so open, and then be prude about the sexual aspect of it.
“It was clear from the beginning, but also from the novel, from the script, from my discussions with Emma, as well, and how we came up with those scenes.”
Lanthimos heaped praised on the performance of Stone in Poor Things, saying: “She's just incredible.
"The vulnerability of it, the sensitivity and the humour of it — it's just so difficult to do. I just don't know how she did it."
Topics: TV and Film, TV
Michael Slavin