Kimi (2022)
Dir Steven Soderbergh
Written by David Koepp
Zoe Kravitz, Rita Wilson, Byron Bowers, Erika Christensen, Devin Ratray, Robin Givens
In a modern day Rear Window, an agoraphobic young woman Angela (Kravitz), who is a software engineer for a smart speaker called Kimi. One day while going through corrections, in which she listens to users directions – she believes she hears a young woman being attacked. She then make it her mission to try to find out who she was, and if she is okay.
Soderbergh’s direction is okay here, but nothing like what he has done in the past. His standard multiple angles of the same character in the same position is used from time to time. I found the Angela’s use of noise cancelling headphones, which cut off the sound for the audience too, was done well.
Angela, is completely unlikeable for a majority of the movie. There was very little to really root for her at all. Her characterisation, as well as a poor screenplay with silly dialogue between characters made this a hard viewing, and it dragged at 86m.
The setting which was primarily in Angela’s apartment, much like the film it was playing homage to. Another part of the film was in what was ‘supposed’ to be a high tech office, yet looked low budget, which I’m not sure if this was an oversight by the designers, or purposeful.
The supporting cast were completely wasted. This was supposedly due to the C19 pandemic. This was also written into the screenplay which was another problem I had with the film (wasn’t it bad enough that we had to go through it?). Cast members like Wilson, Christensen and Givens are barely in the film – or are in either one scene, seen over webcam, or in flashbacks separate to the other cast.
The third act in which ** spoiler ** Angela miraculously overcomes her agoraphobia in order to get the recording of the young woman being attacked to her bosses is a unbelievable, and done poorly. Other films I have reviewed in the past have shown this to be done so much better.
I did not enjoy this one.
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