Today we have a couple Dark Comedies from Searchlight Pictures that were released in 2024. Also, dogs are involved.
Kinds of Kindness, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, is an anthology film consisting of three segments. The movie begins with the song “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics, with the relevant lyrics being “Some of them want to use you/Some of them want to be used by you/Some of them want to abuse you/Some of them want to be abused by you.” In each segment, there is a character who allows someone else to control them. They go to questionable lengths to remain controlled.
Segment one tells the story of a man who has every detail of his life dictated by his boss. What he wears, what he eats, whether he can have children… Not until his boss asks him to kill a man in a deliberate car accident does he refuse. This leads to his boss cutting him off from their business and personal relationship.
Segment two is about a police officer whose wife ends up missing after a shipwreck. When his wife is recovered, the police officer does not believe that the woman is actually his wife, in particular due to her feet being too big to fit her shoes. He begins asking her to perform insane tasks to prove her loyalty.
Finally, the third segment features a woman who belongs to a bizarre cult that is searching for a twin who can raise the dead. The cult places great emphasis on not becoming contaminated by the outside world. When the woman does become contaminated, she is kicked out. She sets out to find the twin in order to get back into the cult.
The segment that best explains the theme of the film is the second, in which the wife of the police officer tells of a dream she had while shipwrecked. In the dream, the woman is taken care of by dogs. They lick her wounds and feed her chocolate (while they eat lamb). During the end credits of the segment, dogs are shown engaging in various human activities. A Reddit post further illuminates the meaning behind the dogs:
“The dogs are the key to understanding this movie. The observation is that humans have such difficulty with the chaos of being alive that they secretly prefer the subservient life of dogs, whether that subservience is to a corporation, a spouse, or a religion.”
Nightbitch is about a stay at home mom (Amy Adams) who is conflicted about giving up her career as an artist to focus on raising her son. Her husband is a bit dense when it comes to understanding his wife’s struggles with maintaining her sanity and the identity of who she once was. While her husband travels for his job and engages with the world, she feels more and more trapped in her role. On top of that, she begins to experience strange physical changes that cause her to resemble a dog. During flashbacks to her childhood, her mother is shown transforming into a canine. The woman soon discovers that she, too, can become a dog and run freely. This has a liberating effect on her.
The difference between the two films is that, while the characters in Kinds of Kindness seek to be stifled to bring order and comfort to their lives, the woman in Nightbitch desires to free herself so she can pursue her dreams. The dog represents obedience in Kindness and freedom in Nightbitch.
At the end of Nightbitch, the woman reclaims the artist she once was and puts on a gallery showing. Her husband apologizes for not seeing that she needed to express herself, and they become closer as a result. The characters in Kindness, however, end up stuck (or worse) in their stifled lives.
Flickchart stats:
Nightbitch
- Global ranking: 63,954
- Wins 43% of matchups
- 0 users have it at #1
- 1 user has it in their top 20
Kinds of Kindness
- Global ranking: 10,558
- Wins 56% of matchups
- 1 user has it at #1
- 9 users have it in their top 20
