Two of My Favorite Movies of All Time Are Oddly Similar: Unpacking Pulp Fiction and Kinds of Kindness

SPOILER ALERTS for Pulp Fiction (it’s 30 years old, come on) and Kinds of Kindness (okay that one came out last summer, I get it).

On the surface, Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 masterpiece Pulp Fiction and Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2024 masterpiece Kinds of Kindness wouldn’t appear to have all too much in common. The former is my favorite film of all time (very original, I know). Pulp has been analyzed to death so much from every possible angle by every possible film bro that I won’t bore you with much detail, but as you probably know, it weaves together the pulpy stories of various people involved in the L.A. crime underworld. Lanthimos’s more recent gem comes off as more of a surreal psychological mindfuck like his other films, a triptych fable telling three separate stories of different characters in various unsettling and creepy — but not necessarily pulpy — walks of life. However, the overall viewing experiences of these two multi-layered black comedy roller-coaster rides have a little more in common than one may think at first glance.

To start with the obvious, both ensemble casts are star-studded. The combined talent of Jesse Plemons, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, and the rest of Kindness’s group comes at least close to rivaling Pulp’s iconic lineup of John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, and many more. While both films follow multiple storylines, they execute it in different ways: Pulp merges its narratives together into one, while Kindness divides them into three separate mini-films with the same actors playing different characters in each one, almost giving the feel of a very long, twisted sketch comedy show. However, both films feature on-screen title cards and separate names for each story, making us feel like we are viewing parts of a very important whole and making us wonder how it all ties together. On the first viewing, each movie feels like one wild, violent, sexually charged, seemingly random event after another, giving us no clue what to expect next besides more chaos. What does it all mean? seems to be the question meant to rattle through our heads throughout each film, until we reach the end and have a truly massive number of thoughts to unpack, some of which may provide enough info to piece together an answer.

Pulp is often said to have themes like redemption, morality, and fate, which have been broken down by many a film scholar and many a YouTuber over the years. When you take the first letter of each of those words, it spells R.M.F., the initials of the mysterious man who is arguably Kindness’s central character (despite never speaking and only making a substantial appearance in one of the three stories). While the most common theory for the meaning of R.M.F. is not redemption, morality, and fate, but redemption, manipulation, and faith, the overall combination of themes explored is not dissimilar. This makes a lot of sense: in the first story, “The Death of R.M.F.,” Robert (Plemons) redeems himself by finally killing R.M.F. with his car after initially refusing this request from his boss Raymond (Dafoe), gaining reacceptance into Raymond’s weird sex cult. In the second fable, “R.M.F. Is Flying,” Daniel (Plemons) manipulates his impostor “wife” Liz (Stone) into severing her body parts and serving them to him as food, leading her to unwittingly commit suicide and allowing the real Liz (also Stone) to return. In the final cheery and wholesome tale, Emily (Stone) is part of another Dafoe-led weird sex cult and has faith that Ruth (Qualley) has the ability to revive the dead as predicted by a prophecy. It is this faith that allows Emily to find Ruth and bring the deceased R.M.F. back to life, before it all goes sideways (which we’ll discuss in a bit). While the R.M.F. themes are all interspersed throughout Kindness’s three stories, they make the most sense with the three letters lining up in the order of the three short films. Redemption, manipulation, and faith are also central to the story of Pulp in various ways and to varying degrees, so the films are more thematically similar than they may appear at first glance.

In addition to overarching themes, the two cinematic gems share similarities in their actual substance as well. This starts with the way they are introduced, each featuring an opening-credits song that captures the energy of the film before abruptly stopping as we meet the first characters (“Jungle Boogie” by Kool and the Gang in Pulp, “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” by Eurythmics in Kindness. Some of the actual events that take place in the films also parallel each other. Both movies feature a famous dance scene starring a great actress at the height of her powers, right before her character's joy is quashed by an adverse event. In Pulp, Thurman and Travolta have their legendary dance moment soon before Thurman’s character Mia overdoses on heroin and nearly dies. In Kindness, Stone gets to show off her dance skills as her character Emily celebrates finding Ruth the necromancer, a scene that instantly became one of the film’s most iconic. As was the case with Mia, Emily's happiness is short-lived as things soon take a dark turn. While the song choices of “You Never Can Tell” by Chuck Berry and “BRAND NEW BITCH” by COBRAH represent slightly different musical sensibilities, the fact remains that both Thurman and Stone's dance scenes are as memorable and captivating as any part of the movies they are in.

Emily’s celebratory dancing isn’t the only way in which her fatal car-crash event parallels events from Pulp. Both films feature darkly comedic moments — integral to the plot — in which an innocent person riding in the backseat of a car is accidentally killed in bloody fashion by the criminal(s) with whom they are riding. Pulp’s famous “I shot Marvin in the head” scene sees Vincent (Travolta) and Jules (Jackson) driving with Marvin (Phil LaMarr) in the backseat, having just killed three men and narrowly avoided their own death, when Vincent mistakenly (most believe it was a mistake, at least) blows Marvin's head off and puts them in an even bigger mess. Kindness’s Emily finds herself in a similar scenario when she drugs and kidnaps Ruth, helps her bring R.M.F. back to life, then triumphantly begins her drive back to the cult island after the dance. Her maniacal driving, however, catches up with her and she crashes the car, leading to Ruth’s gruesome death and Emily’s hard work having been for nothing. Both criminals (Vincent and Emily) are riding high after victorious moments before they carelessly slaughter the innocent people in their cars (Marvin and Ruth), leading to bigger headaches than ever before (figuratively and literally).

I don’t know how much influence, if any, Lanthimos took from Tarantino when writing and directing Kinds of Kindness, but he certainly created a viewing experience that is all-around similar to Pulp Fiction. Although they may have come from wildly different directors and creative places, these two multi-storied films are both over-the-top, complex, fucked-up, darkly hilarious adventures that leave me unpacking everything to this day and still asking that question: What does it all mean?