Kimi
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Running time: 1h 36m | REVIEWED BY GUY LODGE
Zoë Kravitz stars in Kimi
It’s now ten years since Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement from filmmaking — a promise that he evidently, and thankfully, had no intention of keeping. Since that statement, America’s least predictable mainstream filmmaker has released no fewer than nine features, though it hasn't exactly been business as before: largely eschewing old studio-filmmaking models, he's kept leaning into quicker, cheaper shooting practices and has wholeheartedly embraced the possibilities of streaming, more than most of his peers. Which is all to say that his latest film, Kimi, is technically a TV movie: made for HBO Max in the States, released directly to Sky here, and never intended to see the inside of a cinema.
But it sure feels like cinema: the kind of quick, nimble genre workout that looks easy when Soderbergh — who again shoots and edits the film himself under his usual aliases — does it. But we’ve all seen enough bad B-thrillers and Netflix-style filler to know that Kimi’s spry, syncopated rhythm doesn’t happen by accident: Soderbergh is channelling the same balance of get-the-job-done proficiency and genuine, elegant artistry that Hitchcock managed in his prime, and it’s a pleasure just to go with its groove.
It’s also a long-overdue starring showcase for the bewitching Zoë Kravitz, soon to be seen as Catwoman in the latest Batman outing, and long a welcome supporting presence in the likes of Big Little Lies and Mad Max: Fury Road — but here taking to the solo spotlight with an agile, unfussed air of can’t-be-bought-or-faked cool. She plays Angela, a sharp Seattle tech worker whose natural agoraphobia has been exacerbated by the pandemic — a factor that plays smartly and without undue contrivance into this narrative.
Angela works as an audio moderator for Kimi, an Alexa-style virtual assistant with somewhat sinister powers of surveillance, and when she becomes convinced she’s overheard a violent crime in one of its recordings, the story glides into high gear. I shan’t spoil anything else, save to say that the mechanics of a plot that nods to Rear Window and Brian De Palma’s Blow Out are given an extra, contemporary frisson by the challenges and restrictions of the work-from-home era. Soderbergh, too, knows a thing or two about getting shit done on his own terms, and it’s his and Angela’s sleek, calm capability that carry us through this neat, dark little diversion.
KIMI (2022) Written by David Koepp | Shot by Steven Soderbergh | Edited by Steven Soderbergh
Streaming on Sky Cinema/Now TV now.