Unless you were properly on the ball, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Steven Soderbergh had retired. Again. Fear not, though. Having reversed the decision to fold up his director’s chair, the owner of the most eclectic filmography in modern American cinema has been quietly beavering away on a number of interesting movies that have been slightly buried on HBO Max in the US, Sky/NOW over here, and Netflix in both. One of his most recent movies, the Meryl Streep-starring Let Them All Talk, isn’t even available to watch in the UK.
That one of the most intensely cinematic directors working today is almost exclusively working for the home market feels a bit of a shame. Especially when the movies in question, like last year’s thriller No Sudden Move and now Kimi, are so solid, and showcase a director who still packs a creative punch.
One person who would definitely appreciate the chance to watch the latest Soderbergh without leaving the comfort of their own home, however, is Angela, the hero of Kimi. Played winningly, but with no lack of sharp edges, by Zoë Kravitz (finally having the moment she’s deserved for years, what with this and The Batman coming out within two weeks of each other), Angela is a tech specialist whose job it is to comb through audio commands issued to Kimi devices around the country, and identify potential areas of improvement.
It’s a job that comes with a massive invasion of privacy attached, but it’s also a job to which she’s well-suited because she never leaves her apartment. A severe agoraphobic with OCD and various other unidentified mental-health issues, Angela is the living embodiment of two of Soderbergh and writer David Koepp’s main thematic areas of concern: the dangers of over-reliance on technology, especially the blandly invasive kind which most of us have invited into our lives; and an exploration of the ways in which the pandemic — this is very much a film of the moment — managed to connect us all virtually, but further isolated those who need human contact.
Angela, a fascinating protagonist, has plenty of that, but at a remove and very much on her terms. She has a strained relationship, over video calls, with her mother, her dentist, and her psychologist. The most meaningful relationship in her life is a Rear Window-esque flirtation with a neighbour across the way, who is growing increasingly annoyed at the way she’ll let him into her apartment, and her bed, but won’t let him in anywhere else.
It’s the excellent, and expertly tense, second half of the movie that really motors with purpose.
The first 40 minutes or so, bar a prologue centered around Derek DelGaudio’s tech-company CEO, is pretty much all about establishing Angela’s world, her worldview, and the cast of characters who surround her; almost all of whom will come in handy before the film is over. Some might find this section a long slog, no matter how compelling Kravitz is as the often-contradictory Angela. They came for a thriller, and watching someone potter around their apartment is not usually the stuff of thrills.
However, those who hook into Angela’s particular rhythms will find much to like in this stretch. Besides, everyone is rewarded soon after when events conspire to force Angela out of her apartment, and hurtling headlong into classic conspiracy-theory territory. That’s where Soderbergh really begins to step it up a gear, working slickly in tandem with key collaborators, director of photography Peter Andrews (a pseudonym for Soderbergh himself), and editor Mary Ann Bernard (Soderbergh again; it’s entirely possible every single crew member was also Soderbergh). Dutch angles and off-kilter camerawork emphasise Angela’s growing panic as she first comes to terms with the outside world in general, and then slowly realises she’s stumbled onto something pretty major — and that there are certain parties who will stop at nothing to make sure she never stumbles into anything ever again.
In some ways a companion-piece to Soderbergh’s Unsane, another thriller in which a female protagonist is gaslit repeatedly until she has no choice but to take matters into her own hands, it’s the excellent, and expertly tense, second half of the movie that really motors with purpose, pitting Angela against dark forces she never even knew existed. Of course, she’s pretty resourceful, but Soderbergh and Koepp go out of their way to make the audience realise that that might not be enough for her to make it out unscathed by the time we reach the climax, with shades of Wait Until Dark. Or is it? We’re not giving away the ending here, that’s for sure. Perhaps you can Google it. Ask your digital assistant to read it aloud for you. Just be careful what else you say.