Kimi – Film Review

A tech worker with agoraphobia named Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz) discovers recorded evidence of a violent crime but is met with resistance when she tries to report it. Seeking justice, she must do the thing she fears the most: she must leave her apartment.

Steven Soderbergh is an excellent filmmaker responsible for a ton of highly rated, beloved films and yet I still feel as if his name is not as well known as it should be. Ocean’s Eleven, Contagion, and Unsane are just a few of the films under his belt that are worthy of your attention. Sadly, though, his new film Kimi is not one that I would recommend. As a matter of fact, this is the first Soderbergh movie in years that I simply was not a fan of.

This film was written by David Koepp who is also responsible for some of the most acclaimed films ever made. This is the same guy that wrote Spider-Man, Jurassic Park, and Mission: Impossible. In other words, he has legendary writing status. And yet, for some reason, he doesn’t really try to do a whole lot with this story. The idea of an agoraphobic woman witnessing a crime relating to a Siri-like piece of technology and then having to leave her house to investigate it is an amazing idea. Who better than Koepp to do this story?

Sadly, after watching Kimi, I felt as though this could’ve been a whole lot better with a different screenwriter. Running at just ninety minutes including credits, you’d think that Kimi would run at a brisk pace and would have no downtime scenes. But, you’d be wrong. It seemed to me that Koepp was building and building so much to something that just never came.

There is actually some genuinely solid tension that’s built up in the second act of the movie and I kept wondering when we would get the pay-off. The second act wasn’t riveting but it was showing signs that it was leading to somewhere truly great. The final fifteen minutes of Kimi are amazing and I found myself feeling quite satisfied, but I just wish that the film’s only phenomenal scenes weren’t its last ones.

Looking back on the rest of the movie that came before the final few scenes, I genuinely struggled to think of moments that stood out. I mean, there’s a scene early on where they directly mention the song “ME!” by Taylor Swift, so that was memorable and nice to see. But other than that, it’s just an endless series of build-up scenes that go on and on with nothing of substance along the way.

If there’s one aspect to the film that deserves immense praise, however, it’s definitely Zoë Kravitz’s performance. As the agoraphobic Angela Childs, Kravitz goes to places she has never explored before, and yet she makes it look so easy. She is quickly becoming one of the fastest-growing actresses in the industry and I can’t wait to see what she does in the role of Catwoman in Matt Reeves’ The Batman in March.

But I just couldn’t help but feel as if Kravitz deserved a much better movie to showcase her amazing acting talents than Kimi. This isn’t an awful movie, but it’s definitely not a good one, either. If you are wanting to get your Kravitz fix, I’d just recommend watching the amazing series High Fidelity instead.