Kimi is a tech thriller about Angela(Zoë Kravitz) an agoraphobic at-home analyst for mega-tech corporation Amygdala who monitors data streams from the companies at home personal assistant devices, the titular Kimi, when she overhears a crime. She attempts to report it through Amygdala but gets drawn into a more complicated and sinister plot than she realized.
Kravitz, per usual, is excellent and is allowed here a lot of room in which to build the character patiently and with a lot of nuance as she is virtually on screen the entire run time with extended periods by herself. Because of how forward Angela is the supporting cast is limited but is full of talent and pop in for some effective, in essence, cameos- Robin Givens as Angela's mom who is only seen via Facetime, Devin Ratray as Kevin Angela's shut-in neighbor, Alex Dobrenko as Darius an Amygdala IT who brings some excellent and much needed levity, and probably the biggest supporting role is Byron Bowers as Terry Angela's romantic partner who is wonderful and casual and if he doesn't make the biggest impact plot wise serves the much necessary purpose of bringing realism and dimension to Angela's situation which is as much a focus as the actual mystery.
Shot and edited with Soderbergh's usual acuity, even if a large swath of the film takes place in Angela's apartment every scene is dynamic, every scene imparts information, character or story, nothing lacks purpose. Although the narrative might be, at it's core, a riff on Rear Window the context of the pandemic and its effects is both relevant, and effective but not oppressive. It's nice to see as much of recent TV and movies have decided to set stories in a world where COVID simply does not exist. It's a cop out and we need our art to respond in some way and this does it without being hopeless or despairing or relying on a gimmick like an entire story happening on Zoom.
A stellar lead performance from Kravitz, a relatively familiar conceit freshened up enough to be engaging, with some decent big tech commentary.
Currently streaming on HBO Max.
See It.
No comments:
Post a Comment