LWLies 103: The Kinds of Kind­ness issue – Out now!

Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos nev­er dis­ap­points. After plung­ing us into the wild bac­cha­na­lian depths of Poor Things ear­li­er this year – which we plunged into for our 101^st issue – the Greek direc­tor is now firm­ly reset­tling back to his roots. A more con­tem­po­rary time and place makes up the set­ting for yet anoth­er of his deranged explo­rations of the human con­di­tion, this time in the form of an anthol­o­gy told in three seem­ing­ly uncon­nect­ed parts.

Kinds of Kind­ness sees Lan­thi­mos reunit­ing with trusty screen­writer Efthimis Fil­ip­pou, with whom he co-wrote the screen­plays for Dog­tooth, Alps, The Lob­ster and The Killing of a Sacred Deer. Using a small ensem­ble of reg­u­lars and new­com­ers in dif­fer­ent roles, the duo are once more bran­dish­ing their pen­chant for blow­ing provoca­tive imagery out of pro­por­tion with sharp, absur­dist humour whilst weav­ing char­ac­ters in and out of each oth­ers’ lives. There’s tonnes to unpack with­in this nasty trip­tych of cere­bral sto­ries, where sub­mis­sion, manip­u­la­tion, tox­i­c­i­ty and con­trol are turned into ​“kinds of kindness”.

In this stacked issue, we speak to Lan­thi­mos and Fil­ip­pou about the fruits of their leg­endary col­lab­o­ra­tion. We also meet with Emma Stone, Jesse Ple­mons, Willem Dafoe and Hong Chau, who speak to us about the process­es behind craft­ing a unique set of characters.

On the cover

We’re proud to show­case a new piece by the Edin­burgh-based artist Tom Hum­ber­stone, which riffs on the film’s clever mul­ti­verse con­ceit. For inspi­ra­tion, we sent Tom a ​’90s film poster as a bit of inspi­ra­tion for what we were going for (as a bit of an homage), but see if you can guess which one it is. You can explore more of Tom’s work, includ­ing his ace ten­nis-themed graph­ic nov­el, Suzanne, here.

In the issue

Lead review: Kinds of Kind­ness
David Jenk­ins prais­es the sprawl­ing and spry new fea­ture from the mis­chie­vous Greek auteur, Yor­gos Lanthimos.

Lit­tle Babies
A con­ver­sa­tion on the god-like qual­i­ties of direct­ing and writ­ing with Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos and Efthimis Filippou.

Sum­mer Camp
Emma Stone and Jesse Ple­mons attempt to deci­pher the codes and mean­ings in Kinds of Kindness.

God’s Away on Busi­ness
Charles Bramesco explores the var­i­ous strange and sym­bol­ic screen depic­tions of the big guy upstairs.

White Knuck­le
Willem Dafoe and Hong Chau lay out the par­tic­u­lars of Yor­gos Lan­thi­mos’ method with actors.

Trig­ger Warn­ings
A com­pendi­um of con­fes­sions from LWLies writ­ers on the moments that have caused them to phys­i­cal­ly look away from the cin­e­ma screen.

In the back section

Jeff Nichols
The Amer­i­can direc­tor details the cir­cuitous route he took to final­ly arrive at his ele­giac new film, The Bikeriders.

Nuri Bilge Cey­lan
The Turk­ish mae­stro unpicks the secrets of his screen­writ­ing and how he cre­at­ed such rich and abra­sive char­ac­ters for new film, About Dry Grasses.

Marie Ama­chouke­li
The deci­sion to write a film from the per­spec­tive of a six-year-old was a no-brain­er for the direc­tor of the won­der­ful Ama Gloria.

Bertrand Bonel­lo
The French vet­er­an and provo­ca­teur on the mod­ern res­o­nances of Hen­ry James and being the total film­mak­er for his new film, The Beast.

In review

Jeff Nichols’ The Bik­erid­ers
Vig­go Mortensen’s The Dead Don’t Hurt
Richard Linklater’s Hit Man
Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grass­es
Sel­ma Vilhunen’s Four Lit­tle Adults
Kamal Lazraq’s Hounds
Julio Tor­res’ Prob­lemista
Jason Yu’s Sleep
Lev­an Akin’s Cross­ing
Matías Piñeiro’s You Burn Me
Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias
Marie Amachoukeli’s Ama Glo­ria
Nathan and David Zellner’s Sasquatch Sun­set
Bas Devos’ Here
Agniesz­ka Holland’s Green Bor­der
Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast
Turn­er and Bill Ross’ Gaso­line Rain­bow
Stéphanie Di Giusto’s Ros­alie
Christo­pher Murray’s Sor­cery
Kevin Costner’s Hori­zon: An Amer­i­can Saga – Chap­ter 1
Paul B. Preciado’s Orlan­do, My Polit­i­cal Biog­ra­phy
Monia Chokri’s The Nature of Love

Plus, Matt Turn­er selects six key home ents releas­es for your con­sid­er­a­tion; Han­nah Strong sends a post­card from the Cannes Film Fes­ti­val; Mari­na Ash­i­oti looks at Vir­ginia Woolf’s nov­el ​‘Orlan­do’ and its var­i­ous screen adaptations.

LWLies 103 is avail­able to order now from our online shop. Become a Club LWLies Gold Mem­ber or sub­scribe today to make sure you nev­er miss an issue.