11 Feb Kimi Review

KIMI

dir. Steven Soderburgh, starring Zoe Kravitz, Byron Bowrs, Rita Wilson, and Derek DelGaudio

Set in contemporary times, while COVID continues to ravage the country, Zoe Kravitz’s Angela Childs chooses a life of isolation, taking all appointments via internet conferencing. A tech worker employed to review data streams for Kimi, a stand-in technology similar to Google’s Echo or Amazon’s Alexa, Kimi stumbles across audio evidence of a violent crime. After attempting to report the crime, Angela is forced out of her preferred routine to deal with the everyday world as she attempts to solve the puzzle of who’s responsible.

While an aversion to tuning into stories dealing with COVID makes perfect sense after all the drama, confusion, and frustration blanketing our everyday lives, Soderbergh smartly uses it as a backdroup to the actual events of the film, choosing use it as a framing device rather than a plot point. There’s more story to Kimi than presented in the film: references to an assault that Angela endured, the bonding of across the street neighbors during the pandemic, and a lingering tooth ache that’s highlighted but never really comes into play. A distant cousin to films like The Net, Kimi’s digital thriller vibe stretches the possibilities of audio engineering but nonetheless delivers a solid Soderbergh low-to-mid-budget film that’s becoming increasingly rare. With a breakneck pace that unfortunately speeds headlong to a rushed ending, the foundation of the movie is still sturdy enough to please fans of the genre.

Starring Zoe Kravitz, Kimi is her vehicle, and she is front and center in almost every scene of the film. Kravitz is delightful in her performance; while the story and the script aren’t exactly giving her any Oscar worthy material to handle, she makes use with what she has, providing us with a character dealing with a trauma that’s continuing to afflict her everyday life. Byron Bowers as Terry Hughes, Kimi’s (it’s a stretch to call it a) romantic interest that lives across the street also turns in a solid performance in the handful of scenes he’s in. Most of the other actors and actresses (Rita Wilson and Derek DelGaudio are there for a cup of coffee) don’t have enough time or lines to make a difference, proving yet again that Kravitz dominates the film, as she should.

With Kimi, director Steven Soderburgh continues to diversify his filmography. Rarely longer than two hours, Soderbergh’s mastery of storytelling in a 85-115 minute window has become a staple of his career. Coming off of last year’s crime drama No Sudden Move, a story of aged criminals in run down Detroit living a hardscrabble life trying to make it from one score to the next, Kimi is its spiritual opposite, choosing to focus on a young woman cloistered in a spacious Seattle apartment. Soderbergh’s camerawork is reminiscent of his work on Netflix’s High Flying Bird, making great use of natural light and on location exteriors to give his movies a more natural feel. Also edited by Soderbergh, the tight pacing and use of sound throughout the movie bring a life to the movie. Aided by a strong score from composer Cliff Martinez that’s at times dreamy and surreal and at times tense, the combination of the music with Soderbergh’s direction of Kravitz make for some standout scenes in the film.

Overall, while Kimi is nowhere near Soderbergh’s best work, it’s a still a breezy, enjoyable movie that’s perfect for a Saturday afternoon watch on the couch when nothing else is happening. An interesting premise, bolstered by Kravitz’s performance, its 89 minute runtime flies by while we root for Kimi to expose the corruption within her company. While the film will likely fade from memory over the course of the year as the blockbusters and award baits roll out, it remains a solid, compact, in-the-moment experience that engages the audience and allows them to zone out and be swept along for the ride. Kimi is now streaming on HBOMax.

Review by Darryl Mansel