I must be honest, I wasn’t sure if I would be into the new Steven Soderbergh directed, Zoe Kravitz led vehicle KIMI, but was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed.
A tightly woven narrative, penned by David Koepp, that perfectly plays out in 1 hour and 29 minutes, “Kimi” conveniently and cleverly uses the current pandemic, its isolation, the main character’s agoraphobia, and a web of digital intrigue to create an interesting and thrilling story.
Kravitz stars as Angela, a work-from-home company techie who updates and reconciles words, recorded in real-time, and word meanings for a digital voice assistant named Kimi. When she comes across a disturbing recording that may depict an assault, she must overcome her mental health challenges – and face unexpected and dangerous enemies – to get the evidence to the authorities.
Angela is self-absorbed, obsessive and a bit unlikeable, however she is also traumatized and the victim of a haunting event that leads to crippling agoraphobia – making her commitment to reveal the truth rather selfless and also her overcoming threats easy to root.
Although I love a couple of her performances as a younger actress, most notably the indie “Yelling to the Sky,” the adult Kravitz typically is too demure in her delivery for my taste. But that quality actually worked perfectly for Angela and her sometimes stoic and standoffish demeanor, which added to the realism of her situation.
“Kimi” also has a solid supporting cast, with veteran actresses Rita Wilson and Robin Givens lending their star power as Angela’s work administrator and mother respectively.
Koepp’s script relies on realistic and ordinary measures to overcome challenges, with the protagonist using more brain than brawn in her attempts to outwit pursuers. And I appreciated that the film doesn’t take close to two hours to get to the heart of, nor resolve, its story.
I rate “Kimi” 3.5 out of 5 beats on the MMTrometer.
KIMI is streaming now on HBO Max.
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