Rating: R | Runtime: 89 minutes
Release Date: February 10th, 2022 (USA)
Studio: Warner Bros. / HBO Max
Director(s): Steven Soderbergh
Writer(s): David Koepp

And trust me, I know bad: I used to moderate for Facebook.

I had a lot of fun with Steven Soderbergh’s Kimi. While David Koepp’s script fails horribly insofar as addressing the nuance of trauma’s effects, it does take us down a suspenseful and entertaining rabbit hole of tech world toys coming to the rescue of an unsuspecting bystander (Zoë Kravitz’s Angela) on the outskirts of a murder mystery that’s currently in the process of being erased. Why she was sent a digital clip of said crime in the batch of “error” streams flagged by her employer Amygdala (which manufactures an Alexa-type smart home device) is unclear, but she’s sure as hell not going to ignore it.

The film introduces an eccentric cast of characters, all with the sole purpose of playing their small but crucial roles in the climax. Whether it’s Mom (Robin Givens), a rowdy co-worker in eastern Europe (Alex Dobrenko), a creepy neighbor (Devin Ratray), or Angela’s regular booty call (Byron Bowers), their whereabouts, means of communication, and work schedules are precisely measured. They must be since Angela is agoraphobic (stemming from an assault and exacerbated by the ongoing COVID pandemic) and thus almost always alone. Who can she trust? Who is willing to help? Can she even push herself to leave her apartment when necessary?

There’s a nice mix of comedy and thrills with some great sound design (Angela must clean up the recording via digital and analog devices while shielding the audience from ambient sounds via soundproof headphones) as things escalate from confusion and fear to full-on violent, home invasion attack mode. Soderbergh continues his penchant for out-of-the-box casting in dramatic fare (Rita Wilson, David Wain, Andy Daly, etc.) and lets Kravitz shoulder the emotional and psychological weight of constantly being dismissed and/or neglected. Because Angela is a such an interesting, complex characterization, though, the end’s “fix-all” tone can’t help taking a bit of the film’s otherwise impressive luster away.

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Zoë Kravitz in Steven Soderbergh’s KIMI.