Angela (Zoe Kravitz) works from home for a social media company behind the home device Kimi. Kimi is a voice operated system which can run your house and keep your life on track.
It also records its interactions, which enables Angela to fix problems as they happen.
Angela’s life is intentionally repetitive and mundane. She rarely leaves the house. And she likes it that way.
But when Kimi records what sounds like a murder, Angela realises she will have to go out into the world to solve the mystery.
One of my favourite things about Steven Soderbergh is his productivity. I may not click with everything he pumps out, but there is something reassuring about the fact that he will have another project out before you have had time to wipe the last one from your memory banks.
A spiritual sibling to his previous thrillers - particularly Haywire, Side Effects and Unsane, Kimi is a lean little piece that may not be that original, but it is highly functional and does not dawdle.
The older I get, the more impatient I get with saggy runtimes. It has started to affect my reviews. Sweetheart is a solid genre piece but I elevated to classic status as soon as I saw the runtime was 82 minutes. That is increasingly rare with big budget blockbusters.
Kimi boasts a similar runtime - 89 minutes with credits - and it moves like it knows it.
The plot mechanics are familiar but sturdy - the film is not interested in subversion, but economy and function. This movie is designed to run.
In the central role, Zoe Kravitz is terrific. She is such a perfect fit for Soderbergh’s economic, soft-sell approach that I hope this is the first of many collaborations.
I have not seen everything she is in, but with what I have seen of Kravitz’s work it always felt like filmmakers were missing something.
I would see her in movies and think she was fine, but it always felt like she was in the wrong parts. She always felt smarter and tougher than what was written. It was not until I watched 2019’s High Fidelity that it felt like she was in a role that felt tailor-made for her.
Since the movie is almost entirely based around her, Kimi is dependant on her holding the screen. And she does.
Angela is someone who exerts immense control over her environment. That hyper-focus is a cover for deep-seated trauma and insecurity.
Kravtiz balances a flinty distance with a constant underlying tension. It always feels like she is on edge and ready to move.
Once she leaves the sanctity of her apartment, there is a feral quality to Kravitz’s performance that Soderbergh compliments with moments of sped-up camera speed that add to the sense of agitation and paranoia. She is out in the open - if she slows down or stops, she will be more exposed and vulnerable.
There is not much more to it, but that’s the beauty of a genre exercise like Kimi.
This is all about the execution. And as a tight small-scale thriller, Kimi gets the job done with style, economy and a great central performance.
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