Yorgos Lanthimos' latest picture, Kinds of Kindness, is a triad of absurdist, unsettling stories exploring topics — cannibalism, maiming yourself, and rape — not exactly poised for digital trends.
But fear not the film released a TikTok lens to promote the movie.
The film stars Lanthimos' Poor Things collaborators Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Margaret Qualley, in addition to The Favourite's Joe Alwyn, as well as Lanithmos newcomers Jesse Plemmons. Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer. For Mashable, Robert Daniels described the film as "prickly, dark" and a return to Lanthimos' "unconventional roots, his older, spikier films like Kinetta and Dogtooth."
The lens allows users to recreate the movie posters for Kinds of Kindness that feature an abnormally large face transposed onto a normal-sized body. To maximize the Kinds of Kindness-ness of the filter pair it with the film's opening song the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" or the soundtrack to Stone's iconic dance sequence "Brand New Bitch" by COBRAH. So far, it's been used four times on the platform.
Kinds of Kindness joins another new release Inside Out 2, which is on track to be the highest-grossing film of 2024, in using TikTok lenses to draw attention to the films. The Inside Out 2 lens randomly assigns users one of the emotions from the film: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust, Envy, Anxiety, Ennui, Embarrassment, and Nostalgia.
Despite summer 2024's best efforts, no one is recreating the digital culture moment that was Barbenheimer.
