‘Kinds of Kindness’ trailer reunites Emma Stone with Yorgos Lanthimos

March 27, 20243 Mins Read

Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos have wasted no time following up their recent Oscar wins.

The Best Actress-snagging star and Poor Things director already have a new movie coming out this summer, and now we’ve gotten the first trailer for it. One big takeaway from the short teaser? Kinds of Kindness seems to be set in the present — or something like it.

The trailer begins with Stone driving a purple sports car and saying in a voiceover, “This is it: the moment of truth.” We then get brief glimpses of her wearing a modern suit and later a dress, both of which stray from her looks in previous collaborations with Lanthimos, such as the Victorian mishmash fashion of Poor Things (which won costume designer Holly Waddington an Oscar) and the 18th-century period garb of The Favourite.

Emma Stone in ‘Kinds of Kindness’.

Searchlight Pictures

In addition to Stone, Kinds of Kindness stars Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn, Mamoudou Athie, and Hunter Schafer (who doesn’t have to worry about being tied up with Euphoria season 3 anytime soon).

The film is described as a “triptych fable” following three (possibly related) stories, per its synopsis: “a man without choice who tries to take control of his own life; a policeman who is alarmed that his wife who was missing at sea has returned and seems a different person; and a woman determined to find a specific someone with a special ability, who is destined to become a prodigious spiritual leader.”

We have no specifics about who’s playing whom, but the brief scene of Qualley slapping Plemons seems to be part of the second story from the description.

While talking to Entertainment Weekly about Poor Things last year, Lanthimos teased why he opted for a present-day setting with Kinds of Kindness, which at that point was still untitled.

“You always have this desire, whenever you explore something in one way, then you feel the need to do something different,” Lanthimos said. “There are certain stories I think that just makes sense to explore them in a contemporary setting and others that you feel you can reveal more if you’re creating a world in a period setting with those kind of rules and visuals.”

Kinds of Kindness hits theaters June 21. Watch the trailer below.