by Maureen McCabe
KIMI currently streaming on HBO Max is a taut, psychological thriller for the pandemic age, a modern- day Rear Window/ The Conversation cross with a technological twist set in coldly beautiful, affluent Seattle. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp, Kimi deftly explores the anxiety and oftentimes overwhelming loneliness the covid lockdowns have exacerbated in so many people, as well as exploiting a generalized mistrust of electronic monitoring devices and online personas.
Zoe Kravitz gives an affecting, delicately nuanced performance as Angela Childs, a blue-haired tech worker who’s employed by a shadowy company named Amygdala. Amygdala is about to go public and there are millions at stake for CEO Bradley Hasling, played with slimy verve by Derek DelGaudio. Angela spends her days shut up in her gorgeous loft, occasionally glancing out her window at her handsome neighbor Terry, but mainly crushing it to Oxytocin on her exercise bike, obsessively brushing her teeth with an electric toothbrush and monitoring data streams for KIMI, the Alexa/Siri hybrid that is the jewel of Amygdala’s tech. Her trauma- induced agoraphobia has been worsened by the pandemic lockdowns to the point she never leaves her home. She tries once to go meet Terry down on the sidewalk, only to collapse in a defeated heap, unable to turn the knob, at her front door. She is unable to leave even to see her understanding dentist, who advises her over a Zoom-like appointment that despite her diligent dental hygiene her tooth pain is likely the result of an abscess and in serious need of a root canal. The first hour of the movie is set almost entirely in Angela’s loft and the sense of suffocating isolation is pervasive, not just for Angela but for the viewer as well.
When one day Angela hears something disturbing on one of the data streams, she begins investigating it, despite her telemedicine doctor telling her to stop obsessing over work problems to the exclusion of everything else. Her persistence pays off though, when she comes to a shattering realization of what she’s heard on the stream. From there, her efforts to bring the crime she believes she’s heard to the proper authorities’ attention results in her having to leave her loft and then, as the danger mounts, run for her life, all the while conscious that she is most likely being tracked by the very electronic devices she has relied on for so long.
When she steps out her home for the first time, Soderbergh turns his camera loose; his swooping, jerky, panning angles, combined with Kravitz’s choppy running walk, masterfully amps up the building paranoia and fear. No stranger to nerve-shredding suspense (Panic Room), Koepp’s script is tight and nothing, no small detail or minor character, is wasted. As the film races to its conclusion, we witness Angela, who’s always been brilliant but brittle, exhibit her resourcefulness and strength as she tries to outwit the menacing hackers and thugs pursuing her. The chase is perhaps a little too fast; Angela’s transformation seems a bit rushed, and the climax skirts being too far-fetched, but the viewer will enjoy getting there nevertheless and no doubt appreciate the role KIMI, the virtual assistant at the heart of it all, plays in the dénouement.
