Kimi ★★★
AMERICAN director Steven Soderbergh is one of the most consistent film-makers of the past few decades.
In fact you could argue that he has never made a bad film, starting with his 1989 debut, Sex, Lies and Videotape, and has had success in almost every genre and across all manner of budgets.
His latest, Kimi, is a modern riff on the classic Hitchcockian thriller set-up of a person inadvertently witnessing a crime and being targeted by the perpetrators.
One of the actresses of the moment, Zoë Kravitz, stars as Angela Childs, an employee of a tech company called Amygdala which has invented a new version of Syri that makes use of human monitoring to enhance the device.
Angela’s job is to monitor incoming data streams from Kimi devices and make required corrections to the software. While she is able to do the job from home this also satisfies her need to deal with agrophobia and anxiety due to a previous assault, all aggravated by the current COVID pandemic.
She has manages to communicate enough to form a relationship of sorts with a neighbour, Terry, who lives in the building across the road. They meet in her apartment irregularly to have sex.
On one data stream Angela detects what appear to be screams in the background. She is able to separate the sounds enough to hear a woman being threatened and the sounds of an assault or murder.
Angela tries to report the discovery to her superiors but they insist on speaking to her in person at their office. Angela forces herself to attend a meeting which results only in growing suspicions that somebody is trying to cover things up.
Soderbergh brings his usual creativity and energy to the film which features a strong performance from Kravitz and builds to a mostly satisfying climax.
However, there are problems with the script, not the least being that it’s still basically a familiar story we have seen countless times.
There are also some important plot points that aren’t well managed and some implausible aspects in the final act that don’t ring true.
Nevertheless, a new Soderbergh thriller is still something to watch and celebrate.