Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A triptych fable following 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.
Yorgos Lanthimos's anthology darkly comic triptych is distinguished by its singular, deadpan absurdist voice and Jesse Plemons's remarkable lead performance across three separate roles — earning genuine outlier marks for both Acting and Novelty. The three-segment structure has an unmistakably Lanthimosian conception, with ritualistic power dynamics and bleak humor that feel genuinely one-of-a-kind. The plot mechanics are deliberately repetitive by design, which is partly the point thematically but still creates diminishing returns across the runtime, landing it at a middling 3. Cinematography is competent and clean but understated relative to his earlier work. The endings of each segment — and the film's overall conclusion — feel deliberately withholding to the point of frustration rather than purposeful ambiguity, earning a 2.