Kinds of Kindness | 2024 | R | – 8.7.6

Why is “Kinds of Kindness” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “strong/disturbing violent content, strong sexual content, full nudity and language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a rape, a video depicting sex between multiple partners with full nudity, a few implied sex scenes, several discussions of sex with multiple partners, partial non-sexual nudity, several deaths with bloody results shown from a car crash, a self-inflicted organ removal, implied cannibalism, a woman cutting off her own thumb, people being drugged and rendered unconscious, many arguments, and about 16 F-words and other strong language. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.

---

Omnibus movie with three stories: A man tries to break free from a life path guided and controlled by another man, a police officer suspects that his wife has been replaced after she returns from being shipwrecked, and a woman searches for a person prophesied to become a supernatural spiritual guide. With Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Yorgos Stefanakos, Hong Chau, Tessa Bourgeois, Kencil Mejia and Mamoudou Athie. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. [Running Time: 2:44]

Kinds of Kindness SEX/NUDITY 8

 – Two men and a woman watch a video of them having sex with each other and another woman: we see the men fully nude and thrusting from behind the two women that are also nude and hear them all moaning; we then see a woman performing oral sex on one man and the man kissing the other woman (bare breasts, abdomens, buttocks, legs, chests, and partial pubic regions are seen). A undresses his drugged wife (we see her wearing a bralette and underwear that reveal cleavage, abdomen and her legs to the hips) and rapes her; we hear rhythmic moaning and see her moving as he thrusts off-screen (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
► A fully nude man (we see his bare chest, abdomen, legs, buttocks and partial genitals) lies in bed and a woman enters the room, removes her shoes and gets in bed with him (she is otherwise fully clothed); he remarks on her beauty and they kiss (the camera is in extreme close-up during the kiss and we see lips and tongues), and we hear moaning and rhythmic movement from outside the door as another man listens (and sex is implied). A wife wearing a bralette (we see cleavage, bare abdomen, bare back and legs to the hips) and underwear in bed watches her husband dress and grabs his genitals, he recoils and tells her that he is late, she hits him with his nightstick hard on the leg, he complains, she puts the nightstick in her mouth miming oral sex, and she suggests that they have sex while he is wearing his uniform. A flashback shows a woman masturbating while marooned on a remote island (she leans against a tree and has her hand in her pants). After a woman talks about a place where dogs were in charge and people were animals, we see scenes of dogs in human-like activities, such as a dog thrusting on top of another dog lying in a bed (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details).
► Two men and two women kiss in greeting. A man and a woman kiss and caress each other lovingly. A man kisses another man on the lips and says goodbye. A man stands close to another man and touches his face tenderly. Two men hug.
► A woman wearing a bralette (we see cleavage, bare abdomen, bare legs, buttocks and partial pubic area) in bed next to a fully nude man (his bare back, side, buttock, legs and partial pubic area are seen) wakes up and climbs out of bed, climbs into a bathtub and scrubs between her legs while crying. A woman wearing a bra and underwear (cleavage, bare abdomen and legs to the hips are shown) lies in a bed and a man wearing briefs and a short robe (we see his bare chest and abdomen and his legs to the hips) wakes her; she says that she was waiting for another woman, but she never came and she fell asleep.
► A woman asks two men and a woman if they should go upstairs after dinner to have sex together; they do not. A woman talks about missing sex with her husband. A man tells another man that he wants to have sex and the second man asks, “With me or Aka?” and the man replies that last time with the man was very good. A man asks a woman to go out to dinner with him and when he arrives to pick her up, she isn’t there (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). A husband tells his wife that another man picked the woman out for him and convinced him to approach her in a bar and then to marry her; we see a flashback to the man and the woman in a bar.
► A man asks another man if he had sex with his wife in the morning and the man says that they did have sex. A woman says that a man was having a “wet dream.” A man reads an itinerary dictated by another man and one entry indicates that he is not to have sexual intercourse. A husband says that his wife cannot have children because she has “this issue with her ovaries,” in a few scenes. A woman dances making suggestive hip thrusts and movements.
► A woman wears a short, tight-fitting dress that reveals cleavage and bare legs to the upper thighs and a man watches her as she walks away. An unconscious, topless woman is shown on a floor and another woman measures her bare breasts, she places the woman in a wheelchair, places her on a scale to weigh her and puts her fingers in her mouth. A topless woman wearing underwear (we see her bare breasts, abdomen, back, and legs to the lower buttocks) is examined in a medical room and a woman measures her breasts, weighs her and measures her height. A teenage girl is topless and wearing underwear and we see her bare breasts, abdomen, legs and the outline of her labia is evident through the fabric of the underwear. A woman wears a bralette and underwear in a sauna and as the bralette becomes soaked with perspiration her nipples become visible as well as her bare abdomen, and legs to the hips. The outline of a woman’s nipples is visible through her blouse. A woman wearing a short robe that reveals cleavage and her bare legs to the hips answers a door and a man enters while the woman speaks with someone on the phone; the woman gives the man an envelope and the man leaves. A woman wears a swimsuit that reveals cleavage, bare shoulders and back and partial bare buttocks. A man is shirtless and wears boxers when he gets out of bed (we see his bare chest, abdomen, back and legs). A man’s dead body in a morgue is seen and his bare chest and abdomen are exposed. Two women wearing swimsuits swim in a pool (cleavage, bare backs, and legs to the lower buttocks are shown). A woman wears a bathing suit that reveals cleavage and bare legs to the hips in a sauna.

Kinds of Kindness VIOLENCE/GORE 7

 – A car swerves across a two-lane road to avoid an oncoming car and crashes into a roadside display sending the passenger through the windshield and onto the hood of the car (we see the body with a bloody head wound). A teen girl drinks alcohol at a party, after becoming inebriated, runs to an empty swimming pool, and jumps in; we see her on the bottom of the pool with blood pooling under her head. A woman wearing a swimsuit runs toward the edge of an empty swimming pool and dives in; we see her limbs twisted, as she lies motionless on the bottom of the pool with blood in her nose and pooling under her. A man asks an orderly for help to the bathroom in the hospital and we see the first man leave the bathroom later wearing the orderly’s scrubs; he takes a wheelchair, removes an unconscious man’s monitors and IVs, puts him in the wheelchair and wheels him outside, dumps him on the ground and drives his car over the man twice (we see blood on the body and the man is clearly dead). A husband tells his wife that he wants something filling to eat and suggests her liver; we then see the woman dead on a chair with a knife on her floor and pools of blood under her and on her abdomen next to a bloody organ. A man asks a woman to cut off one of her fingers and cook it for him to eat; she uses a large knife to cut off her thumb and we hear squishing and crunching as she squelches a scream and see the severed finger on a cutting board in a pool of blood and later on a plate.
► A wife drinks two cocktails prepared by her husband that he drugged, she vomits (we see goo on the floor, his foot and her face), they kiss, he lies her back on a sofa, undresses her (we see her wearing a bralette and underwear that reveal cleavage, abdomen and her legs to the hips) and rapes her; we hear rhythmic moaning and see her moving as he thrusts off-screen.
► Two police officers pull over a car and tell the driver to get out; the driver is searched and one officer accuses her of having his phone, the passenger gets out of the car and puts his hands up and the officer draws his weapon and shoots him in the hand (we see the bloody wound) and the officer licks blood from the man’s hand as the other officer pulls him away. A man in a car speeds his car into another car on a dark street; we see both cars with damage, both drivers have bruises and one has a bloody gash on his forehead.
► A man barges into a house where he demands to see his wife; another woman inside tells him to leave after he makes derogatory remarks about another man and the woman slaps him in the face. A man removes his shoe and sock and kicks a wall hard (we hear a crunch); we understand that he broke his toe and see him wearing an orthopedic boot later. A woman finds a stray dog, coaxes it close to her, puts a leash on it, and uses a knife to cut the dog on the leg causing it to whimper (we see blood) and then takes it to a veterinarian where we see the bloody wound in close-up as the doctor applies glue to the wound. An unconscious woman in a wheelchair is taken to a morgue where she sits next to a dead body on a table; another woman places the first woman’s hand on the dead man’s arm and he revives and sits up (we see a large gash on his forehead).
► A woman is shown at the bottom of a swimming pool with her hair caught in the drain and she is unable to free herself; another woman uses a knife to cut her hair and frees her. A woman in a sauna collapses from the extreme heat and is carried to a table where a woman licks her abdomen and pronounces her still contaminated; the woman is banished from a group and locked outside the gates of a compound. A woman in a sauna collapses and is carried out by several men; she is laid on a table and another woman licks the woman’s abdomen and pronounces her uncontaminated. A woman injects another woman in the neck with a sedative, and the second woman stands up and protests before collapsing on the floor.
► A husband tells his wife that the miscarriages that she suffered were planned and we see him giving her an abortion pill; the woman cries and we see blood in a toilet. A body is pulled off a shelf in a morgue and placed on a gurney; a woman is led to the room where she attempts to revive him by repeating his name and holding her hands over his body, and she says that she is going to be sick from the stench (nothing happens). A man moans in pain and holds his hand hoping to get a woman to help him; she walks past him and leaves.
► A man practices crying in a mirror in a bathroom. A woman describes weevils attacking the bark of a palm tree and we see the insects in close-up. A woman texts a man to tell him that she wasn’t there for their date because she is in the hospital; she has a bruised face and she says that she has a sore back. A man is shown in a hospital on a gurney and we see that he has blood and bruises on his face. A woman is wheeled on a gurney from an airlift helicopter to a hospital. A cat hisses at a woman when she reaches to pet it and it leaves the room. A woman struggles to put on a pair of her shoes and it seems like they don’t fit, but she forces them on. A woman sneaks into a house where her daughter and husband live and puts a pair of sneakers on the child’s bed. A man talks badly about his daughter’s husband and the daughter slaps him in the face.
► A husband says that he found his wife punching herself in the face and the abdomen and we see her in a doctor’s office with bruises on her face and we hear that she had a miscarriage; she tells the doctor that her husband hit her. We hear that a man’s wife is missing at sea and that there is a rescue mission underway. We hear that three other people were killed on an oceanographic expedition and one man is in critical condition and they will likely need to amputate his leg. Two men argue about whether one man will drive his car into another man’s car at a high rate of speed; the man refuses to do so fearing that he will kill the other driver and the other man says that the other driver has agreed to lose his life. A woman tells her young daughter to stay as far away from her father as possible. A husband accuses his wife of stealing his phone. A wife tells her husband that she is pregnant and he tells her to leave. A man looks for his wife and goes to her place of work where he is told that she quit that morning. A man confronts another man about not really loving him. A man tells another man that he looks like he lost weight and that “skinny men are ridiculous.” A man pleads with another man to forgive him in a dream sequence and then in real time and the second man walks away telling him to leave. A husband pleads with his wife in a phone message to come home. A chapter is titled “The Death of R.M.F.” A woman says, “Never eat fish.” A man talks about the deaths of his twin daughters. A man tells a woman that their daughter hurt her foot during ballet class. A man tells another man that the woman that is in his house is an impostor and not his wife. A mental health professional says that a man is suffering from “persecutory confusion.”
► A smashed tennis racket is shown in a display case. A man rifles through a woman’s purse and takes her keys. After a woman talks about a place where dogs were in charge and people were animals, we see scenes of dogs in human-like activities; a dog is shown hanging from a rope with a chair kicked over under it (please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details). A flashback shows a woman eating something that looks bloody (it’s not clear what it is) and we see a bloody shoe nearby with what could be part of a foot in it. A woman pours a large amount of red liquid out of a pot. A woman cuts into a very rare piece of beef (we see blood) and the man that cooked it says that he likes his meat nearly raw. A flashback shows an overcooked fish that is charred. A man removes a small bandage from his forehead and we see a bloody wound. A man flosses his teeth (we do not see any debris).
► Many scenes contain disquieting piano strains.

Kinds of Kindness LANGUAGE 6

 – About 15 F-words, 8 sexual references, 2 scatological terms, 2 anatomical terms, name-calling (ridiculous, old man, mad man, insane, pathetic, fool, out of your mind, monster), exclamations (I don’t have time for this, please, cut the [scatological term deleted], calm yourself down). | profanity glossary |

Kinds of Kindness SUBSTANCE USE

 – A man prepares a cocktail for a woman and puts a powdered drug in it, a man tells his wife that he is fine after an accident and that the hospital doctors gave him some tranquilizers, a flashback shows a husband sprinkling a drug in his wife’s beverage that causes a miscarriage, a man takes medication after an incident at work (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details), and a woman injects another woman in the neck with a sedative. A man drinks a glass of whiskey, men and women drink alcohol in a bar, a man pours another man a glass of whiskey, a man orders a glass of wine in a bar, a man prepares cocktails for himself and a woman and the woman drinks hers and seems inebriated, people drink glasses of wine with a meal and one man drinks a glass of whiskey, several teen girls drink liquor and dance seeming inebriated, and a man orders and drinks two quickly. A man and a woman smoke cigarettes, and a woman smokes from a vape in a couple of scenes.

Kinds of Kindness DISCUSSION TOPICS

 – Control, relationships, humiliation, murder, going to great lengths to be loved, rape, aggression, spousal abuse, disappointment, miscarriage, abortion, psychological trauma, cults, the healing touch, cannibalism.

Kinds of Kindness MESSAGE

 – Being a disappointment, and being disappointed, can be hard to overcome.