This strange and nasty world is not easy to take

(MA 15+, 164 minutes)

2 stars

In the tryptich of distinct stories that stand end-to-end in this confronting dark satire, there is a character called R.M.F. The initials were once a working title for the project, and still appear as the name of a character with a presence in all three narratives.

He has little to say or do and looks much the same from start to finish, while the other actors of the ensemble cast inhabit disparate characters, appearing transformed after each credit roll.

This gnomic, ever-present character is played by a non-actor and friend of the filmmaker. His function may have specific meaning for filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and his co-writer Efthimis Filippou who have returned to work together, resuming a long collaboration that began with Dogtooth.

R.M.F. (Yorgos Stefanakos) may be a character of no consequence, the classic MacGuffin, there to simply lead filmgoers on. In the strange and nasty world with little thematic coherence that fills the screen, R.M.F. somehow seems like the eternal innocent bystander.

From the opening story about an affectless employee lumbered with a malicious, controlling boss, to the tale of a policeman who cannot master paranoid suspicions and turns murderous, to cult members in search of a spiritual healer, a lot of harm is done. There are occasional laughs, but it gets rough in between.

Emma Stone, whose work featured in recent Lanthimos films, The Favourite and Poor Things, is as terrific as ever. But it is a newcomer to the Lanthimos ensemble who holds the film together. Jesse Plemons holds the centre with his outstanding performances as an employee desperate to take control of his life and a deranged policeman who suspects that the woman delivered home to him is actually not his wife. Her shoes don't fit.

Plemons, who won best actor at Cannes here, disappears into the skin of these characters. If the first story had become the dominant narrative, with its clever premise and execution, it could have carried the feature narrative on its own. Raymond (Willem Dafoe) is in charge to the extent that he arranged Robert's marriage to Sarah (Hong Chau) and prevented them from having children. When Robert is instructed to kill someone, the enigmatic R.M.F., someone willing to be killed, he baulks. Until he doesn't.

Edgy piano and odd choral intrusions in the score help deepen the discomfort we share with the put-upon character, Robert, who tries to free himself from the coercive control of his boss. The hapless underdog, well off in material terms at work and life but simply unable to take control of his life and free himself from society's conformism, is a premise that surely speaks to audiences.

In the second story, a policeman, Daniel (Plemons again), is suddenly delivered of his long-lost wife, a researcher missing at sea and feared dead. Liz (Stone) is a great cook who also has a penchant for making group sex videos. She tries to fulfil hubby's every need, but she just can't. When she acquiesces to Daniel's request for braised thumb with cauliflower, Kinds of Kindness begins to feel like a queasy ordeal, scattered with random acts of extreme cruelty. It is testament to the terrific ensemble cast that such brutality and absurdity can look remotely everyday inside the film frame.

In the final act, the third in the tryptich, the grotesque male role is passed across to handsome Joe Alwyn, estranged husband of Emily (Stone). He spikes her drink and rapes her.

A filmmaker with the creative skill and energy to pull off such eccentric projects as The Favourite, The Lobster and Poor Things need not drag audiences through footage of extreme self-harm, simulated in real-time. From lengthy scenes as digits are sliced off, to women torpedoing headfirst into empty swimming pools, the casual, gratuitous misanthropy of Kinds of Kindness is not easy to take.

It was filmed in and around New Orleans, Louisiana, on celluloid by the wonderful DOP Robbie Ryan, in the heart of America's Deep South. Yet Kinds of Kindness has little of the lavish visual pleasures of Lanthimos's wildly off-beat recent historical dramas. And the narrative threads just seem to miss the mark. In the wake of this satiric dark comedy, it may be time for Lanthimos to put former co-writer Tony McNamara back on speed dial.