The stars take multiple roles in Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest, a three-part provocation.

Emma Stone stars in “Kinds of Kindness,” the latest from “Poor Things” filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos.

Starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe, Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Joe Alwyn and Mamoudou Athie. Written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Opens Friday in Toronto theatres. 164 minutes.

A boss orders his employee to gain weight, have regimented marital 𝓈ℯ𝓍 and 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 a guy with his car. A wife severs a finger and fries it for her husband’s dinner. Cult members gather to ritually collect human sweat. And dogs rule an alternate universe.

Such head flips abound in “Kinds of Kindness,” a new three-part film by Yorgos Lanthimos, a wicked study of human nature that could be summarized as Monty Python meets the Marquis de Sade.

Fans (count me in) of the Greek writer-director’s early work, like “Dogtooth,” “The Lobster” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer,” will understand and appreciate this description. Lanthimos and his trusted co-writer, Efthimis Filippou, have returned to the darker impulses that made them leading lights of the Greek Weird Wave, a group of 21st-century film auteurs whose ranks include Athina Rachel Tsangari (“Attenberg”), Panos H. Koutras (“Strella”) and Christos Nikou (“Apples”).

Newcomers to the Lanthimos aesthetic, who climbed aboard the Oscar bandwagon for his more mainstream recent offerings “The Favourite” and “Poor Things,” may be horrified by his bold return to the dark side. Both groups will have to work to wring sense out of “Kinds of Kindness,” a cruel satire that serves only to illustrate the absurd lengths people will go to do what’s expected of them.

Emma Stone, who won an Oscar for playing the 𝓈ℯ𝓍-obsessed Bella Baxter in “Poor Things,” stars alongside Jesse Plemons, Willem Dafoe and Margaret Qualley, with support from Joe Alwyn, Hong Chau and Mamoudou Athie. They all gamely play different oddball characters in each of the film’s three parts. The stories are set in an unnamed American city and have titles referring to a recurring minor character named R.M.F., played by Yorgos Stefanakos, a pal of the director.

“The Death of R.M.F.” (don’t take the titles literally) opens the film with the story of a man toiling for the world’s most oddly generous and outrageously demanding boss. The man, Robert, played to morose perfection by Plemons (who won the best actor prize at Cannes this year), is used to heeding instructions from his sociopathic boss, Raymond (Dafoe), with whom he may or may not have a romantic connection. Raymond tells Robert how to dress, what to eat and when to have 𝓈ℯ𝓍 with his wife, Sarah (Chau). Robert is also expected to maintain a certain heftiness: “Skinny men are the most ridiculous thing there is,” says Raymond, who is a ridiculously skinny guy.

In return for his obedience, Robert is paid lavishly and given bizarre mementos from Raymond, including a smashed tennis racquet formerly owned by Wimbledon bad boy John McEnroe.

Then the day comes when Raymond tells Robert to 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁 the aforementioned R.M.F. by driving his car into him. Suddenly, weirdness turns to defiance followed by punishment.

“R.M.F. Is Flying,” the film’s second and freakiest chapter, has Plemons playing a police officer, Daniel, who suspects his wife, Liz (Emma Stone), has been replaced by an imposter. Liz, a marine biologist, has been lost at sea for an extended period and is feared dead. Her sudden return is an occasion for rejoicing until Daniel begins noticing changes in her behaviour. Liz now has a hitherto unknown craving for chocolate and cigarettes, an urgent desire for kinky 𝓈ℯ𝓍 — including a suggested four-way with Daniel’s partner (Athie) and his wife (Qualley) — and a shocking decision to liven up dinner with a dish of fried finger.

This chapter includes the film’s only truly funny sequence. Liz tells her father (Dafoe) how, while lost at sea, she found safety on an island ruled by dogs. Among other things, the hounds knew how to drive cars. “I must admit, Dad,” she remarks, “the dogs treated us pretty well.”

Part three, “R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich,” finds the gang of deadpan artisans exploring the limits of death and 𝓈ℯ𝓍. Stone and Plemons play a couple on a quest to find a person who they’re convinced can magically bring the dead back to life. They’re members of a 𝓈ℯ𝓍 cult ruled by a man named Omi (Dafoe) and woman named Aka (Chau). Cult rituals include collecting the sweat of supplicants and testing it for purity.

It seems almost like an afterthought given the unhinged exertions of the first two chapters, but part three might be the most revealing. Be sure to stick around for the credits.

“Kinds of Kindness” was shot on 35-millimetre film by cinematographer Robbie Ryan, who also employs an anamorphic lens to slightly squeeze and widen the image. It makes the stories seem all the more grotesque, adding to the sensation I felt of simultaneously liking the film and being repelled by it.

I’m of the same mind as Qualley, who said “Kinds of Kindness” provoked in her an uneasy “am I allowed to laugh?” reaction.

Lanthimos doesn’t instruct the audience how to feel about his film, which may be the only kind thing about it.