I wish a new Yorgos Lanthimos movie brought the same excitement to me that it does for so many others. But no matter how hard I try, I have rarely been able to get onboard with what he’s doing. I often find myself resistant to many of his obsessions and even repelled by his more glaring overindulgences. There’s no doubt he’s immensely talented behind the camera. But he gets in own way when it comes to storytelling, especially now that he doesn’t have a leash.

To its credit, Lanthimos’ latest film “Kinds of Kindness” isn’t as excessively numbing as last year’s “Poor Things”. But it does grow more frustrating over time. And like much of his work, it fits snugly within what some have dubbed cinema’s “Greek Weird Wave”. As usual for a Lanthimos film, “Kinds of Kindness” is visually arresting, and his genius with the camera ensures there is always something interesting to look at. But it also sees the filmmaker once again too invested in his own offbeat preoccupations to focus on making a more bearable movie.

“Kinds of Kindness” is 164 minutes of misanthropy and cynicism framed as a biting satirical triptych from a director who seems to revel in cruelty. The film tells three distinct stories, all featuring the same cast playing different characters. It’s a pitch-black and bone-dry dark comedy that is too amused by its own weirdness to generate any actual humor. But its biggest problem is the utter lack of a human pulse.

The first story is entitled “The Death of R.M.F.” and it follows a man named Robert Fletcher (Jesse Plemons). Neurotic and gauche, Robert allows himself to be controlled by his domineering boss, Raymond (Willem Dafoe). He’s told what to do, what to wear, how much to eat, and even when he and his wife Sarah (Hong Chau) are intimate. But when Robert is ordered to crash his car into a man known only by the initials R.M.F., his absurd world takes an even wackier turn.

Things get even more outrageous with the next story, “R.M.F. is Flying”. Here Plemons plays Daniel, a police officer whose wife Liz (Emma Stone) disappeared while out at sea. He’s stunned when Liz unexpectedly returns without a scratch following a miraculous rescue. Daniel is thrilled to have his wife back but not everything adds up. He begins noticing strange things that makes him suspect she’s not the real Liz. His best friend Neil (Mamoudou Athie) tries telling him he’s overreacting but Daniel isn’t convinced. What follows is twisted, grisly and mostly pointless.

And finally there’s the nonsensical “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich”. In it, Emily (Stone) and Andrew (Plemons) are members of a bizarre oceanside sex cult led by Omi (Dafoe) and his wife Aka (Chau). They’re out looking for a special woman who can bring the dead back to life. Why? It has something to do with a prophecy, but truthfully details don’t matter. Emily secretly slips away to leave gifts for her daughter who she ran out on. This leads to a scene featuring the only genuine sign of emotion in the entire film. But it’s brief and soon Lanthimos is back torturing his characters and his audience.

All three stories share many of the same problems, the biggest being that no one onscreen resembles a real human being. They’re emotionally hollow husks who lack any real sense of purpose other than to be ground up in the Lanthimos meat grinder. Not even the talented and all-in cast can survive Lanthimos’ near masochistic zeal. There are some good ideas tossed around. But they’re lost as the stories get progressively worse and the mildly interesting movie turns into an alienating slog

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS