KIMI

KIMI

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

(2022, New Line Cinema/Warner Bros.)

Jimmy Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock would remove themselves from the telescope of this modern take on the movie, Vertigo.

Zoe Kravitz plays Angela Childs, a shut-in by nature, too frightened and too paranoid to go outside which is only exacerbated by the pandemic.

Angela works for an artificial intelligence company where she oversees looking for and fixing the bugs in their voice assistance, KIMI (remove the K, replace with S; remove the M, replace with R, what do you get?)

In the process of going through the day-to-day fixes, Angela discovers what could be a serious crime by isolating and analyzing the user recording.

She immediately reports the finding which turns into a myriad of consequences both personally and professionally strongly playing on and even overshooting her paranoia.

KIMI is a solid movie but doesn’t ever really achieve the heights it so clearly is trying to achieve. The tension is overexposed. The story is dull, and the pacing is not as crisp as a story like this should be.

Director, Steven Soderbergh, who usually hits a bullseye with his films, just doesn’t pin it this time. It is unfortunate because Kravitz’s performance is fantastic albeit in a mundane story.

D