Directed By Steven Soderbergh

Starring – Zoe Kravitz, Byron Bowers, Rita Wilson

The Plot – During the COVID-19 pandemic in Seattle, an agoraphobic tech worker (Kravitz) discovers evidence of a violent crime while reviewing a data stream and is met with resistance and bureaucracy when she tries reporting it to her company. To get involved, she realizes she must face her greatest fear by venturing out of her apartment and into the city streets, which are filled with protestors after the city council passes a law restricting the movements of the homeless population.

Rated R for violence, adult language and brief sexuality/nudity

KIMI | Official Trailer | HBO Max – YouTube

POSITIVES

In recent years, Soderbergh has made a career off of these simplistic productions creating something unnervingly stimulating in the scope of the engaging creativity, and “Kimi” is certainly no different in this regard. Tasked with a production that not only persists in the limitations of the Covid pandemic, but also one that embraces it creatively to conjure up these tense, anxious feelings continuously elicited in the air of atmospheric range inside of a technological thriller. Thematically, this falls on the shoulders of Kravitz portrayal, who as Angela channels an agoraphobic victim whose own fears and underlining anxieties require her to confront them head-on in order to not only grow as a person, but also help others in the perils of some truly devastating circumstances. When Angela finally leaves the house, midway through the narrative, Soderbergh transitions this internal captivity externally with handheld camera work, various color filters, and an ever-changing framing rate that gives a disoriented feeling of both paranoia and reality in the context of the evolving conflict churning with ruthless urgency. In addition to this, the setting of Seattle certainly doesn’t feel random or accidental, illustrating our own real world-burning situation of social and political devastation, complete with the chaos and carnage of a march protesting homeless camping sites. This certainly affords Soderbergh some of his best direction in over a decade, not only for the way he thickly constructs atmospheric tension in the range many claustrophobic sequences, but also in how he’s able to flesh out the influence of real-world catastrophe and social commentary of our own world persisting outside of this fictional technological narrative. It gives the audience a shred of palpable relatability that doesn’t require wasting time or exposition in the allure of the controversial visuals, and for Soderbergh a fearless approach in depiction that actually values the honesty and reality of our own bleak situation. As previously hinted, Kravitz is a cerebral tour-de-force here, playing Angela with an emotional spontaneity that walks a thousand knives daily with so many cultural anxieties that plague her everyday routine and eviscerate the familiarity of humanity from within her. This occasionally makes her a difficult protagonist to engage with, based on her treatment of others, but it does cast an endearing light of awareness on the condition that many are currently dealing with in a world that seems to have forgotten about them, cementing Kimi as not only an entertaining watch, but an educational one as well.

NEGATIVES

Though Kravitz is a work of wonder here, as previously stated, the supporting cast nearly in their entirety surrounding her are either a bit too one-dimensional or downright wooden in their portrayals. This is especially the case with this antagonist group persisting in the shadows, whose lack of depth in their deliveries are made even worse by some of the most conventionally written dialogue for villains ever put to film, creating more than a few occasional instances where unintentional laughter reared its ugly head during scenes that should be terrifying for the physical and mental strain that they’re putting Angela through. In addition to this, the 83-minute run time, while superbly effective in maintaining the grip of urgency on the unraveling of the narrative, is a bit condensing and condemning to the integrity of the story it’s trying to tell, mainly in the air of the antagonist group that isn’t any more compelling than any of the other hundreds of movies that attempted this before “Kimi”. Their lack of motivation for doing such is never fully realized in the exposition we’re given, making this feel like an asinine plan for people so engaged in technology, yet never fully understanding the grasp of the reach it attains in such accessibility. This as well creates more than a few noticeable plot conveniences along the way, primarily during the inferior third act, where the film transitions from cerebral technological thriller to a “Home Alone” slapstick sequel with little to no tonal evolution along the way. Emotional and physical payoffs are great in a story this consistently traumatic, but their level of personality here feel a bit creatively stretched in how they converge with the rest of the film, creating a climax that feels imaginative instead of the consistencies of reality that so much of the film spent building an anxious roller-coaster through.

OVERALL

With a simplistic approach and claustrophobic enveloping, “Kimi” continues to burn the creative torch that Soderbergh has ignited in the second half of his prestigious career. While the film is plagued with more than a few plot conveniences and one-dimensional antagonists, the majority of its efforts attains success in conjuring an unnerving technological thriller to keep audiences on the edge of its seat for 83-highly impactful minutes.

My Grade: 7/10 or B-