The Mosley Review: Kinds of Kindness

You know what's exciting and yet trickery to digest when it comes to cinema? The films that have a number vignettes stitched together to for an overall narrative. A triptych fable isn't uncommon in cinema and often times they're all centered around a character, event in time or location that every other character is affected by in a certain way. Films like Babel, The Hateful Eight or even Bullet Train all derive from that style and every once in awhile there comes a film that isn't as quite straight forward. This film was that and it was strange at first as each of the three different stories may feature the same cast playing different characters, but there is a central figure that’s always present. It was a fun narrative design while keeping it vague on who or what this person was or an established timeline. At face value, you could say these three stories are morality, spirituality and psychologically driven stories about the human condition. I think there is so much more to unpack with this film, but I will leave that for your interpretation. For me, I thought it was a well crafted anthology story that featured unique takes on certain subjects and each short showcases the different ranges of each cast member in some surprising ways.

There is alot to unpack in the performances across all three shorts so I will highlight my favorite performances of each cast member. Emma Stone continues to show that she can do anything and be the best at it. As all three different characters, she commands the screen with her ability to be as innocent as possible to creepy to insanely desperate. My favorite performance was her as Liz in the second short because it was the more intriguing and creepy. Behind her eyes, you could tell that there was life, but not a huge amount of it. As she navigates how to communicate with her husband, it was a fun game to find out the truth. Jesse Plemons shines brightly with a knockout opening performance and definitely the best of the three shorts. As Robert, you get to experience the all too familiar nature of wanting to please your superior and it was truly stressful and sad to watch a man destroy himself in more ways than one. The psychological warfare happening in that story alone was astounding. Willem Dafoe was awesome across all three stories and for me it was a tie between his performances in the first short as Raymond, the boss of Robert, and Omni in the third short. Both were controlling, manipulative and scary in their own way as they had power over the main characters. Willem has that gravitas to woo you in and it worked so well. Margaret Qualley had her best performance in the third short playing the twin sisters Ruth and Rebecca. You see how the twisted beliefs of Omni infected Rebecca's mind and I liked the warmth of Ruth as she was living the normal life. It's always a delicate balance to have when playing twins and Margaret did an exceptional job. Hong Chau has always delivered stellar performances and her best work comes from her as Sarah in the first short. She was truly devoted to Robert and she delivers such a heartbreaking performance toward the end of the short. Mamoudou Athie was the best in the second short as Neil. He truly shows the sad and scary toll it takes to see your best friend have a possible psychological break.

Composer Jerskin Fendrix did a fantastic job with how unique each short sounds musically. The best was in the third short where the majority was done with the piano and I loved how the same notes let you know when there was tension, intrigue or sometimes heartbreak. Like I said before, this was one of those films that I had to digest before actually writing about it and I have to say I really enjoyed it all around. I wouldn't mind watching this again to pick up on the little visual cues throughout. There is a small mid credits scene that finishes the film and its worth waiting for. Let me know what you thought of the film or my review in the comments below. Thanks for reading!