Kimi [2022]
“Kimi?
– I’m here.”
Kimi is a 2022, COVID-born, quarantine-based, smart-device thriller brought to life by Steven Soderbergh. Among other things, Soderbergh is the father of [appropriately] 2011’s Contagion and 2018’s Unsane. These two are worth specifically mentioning because they seem to be the recipe from which Kimi is baked. Unfortunately, similar to both of the aforementioned films, Kimi is a better ride than it is a whole piece.
While Contagion is mostly a fantastically bold film that is well shot, well executed, and frighteningly clairvoyant when viewed in 2022; it accidentally sets up its most interesting and profound plot point mere minutes before it ends. Thus, it never explores the potential fallouts and repercussions of the action that spawns the event.
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Contation is about an unknown disease ravaging the world. Near the end of the film, a character has access to the vaccine but chooses to give his dose to a close friend instead. In the world Soderbergh creates, vaccinated citizens wear identifying wristbands. Since those bands are tracked via batch and name, said character can’t give his friend his band despite being vaccinated. No big deal – safe is safe and getting double vaccinated at some point is more than likely fine. The intrigue comes when he puts the wristband on himself, thus presenting as though he is vaccinated while actually still being totally vulnerable to the virus. This is made doubly interesting because he is set to have a trial with Congress soon after. This opens up a whole slew of potential conflicts that we never get to explore. Simplest of these is a sequence where he gets sick and, because he’s “vaccinated” the belief in the power of the vaccine is greatly diminished and now work must begin on a second, different vaccine despite the first actually being effective. This lends credence to the conspiracy theorist character that is already in the film and also plays on other themes of selfishness, survival, and unintended consequences that are already present as well. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an intentional plot-point, so the film ends in nearly the next scene and we never see anything come of it.
2018’s Unsane is similarly well made as long as you view it through the lens of Soderbergh intentionally making a feature film using only an iPhone. In that light, it’s quite impressive.
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However, where Unsane falls apart, is about halfway through when you learn that the main character’s “delusions” are all absolutely true and everything she thinks she’s experiencing… she actually is. In certain circumstances this could be interesting, but in this one, it just turns the film into a tired and boring trope of “everyone is crazy except for you” that really doesn’t go anywhere or conclude in any interesting [or believable] manner.
As I mentioned above, it seems that Kimi has taken inspiration from both of these films, but accidentally took only the bad parts. Its plot is similar in scope and potential complexity/ allegory to that of Contagion... but rapidly concludes itself with such a trite and deflated climax you’d think it was written by the same guy who wrote Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [Which is actually quite weird]. Similarly, the film has some serious potential to either get very different [and weird] from the way it presents itself -- turning into something more akin to the 2018 indie masterpiece Freaks -- or stay grounded and spin a deeply complex and reflective yarn about the distorted world we live in, like 2020’s Lapsis. Instead, it takes the easiest way out and almost becomes Atomic Blond if Atomic Blond was boiled down into a 15-minute sequence of increasingly unlikely events who’s conclusion doesn’t exactly add up and also manages to take a profoundly portentous theme and condense it down into so many forgettable pieces you’d swear you never put any ingredients into the pot at all.
This all sounds very negative, and I partially mean it to. However, what I do want to add is that Kimi is not a bad movie. It’s just… a movie. It’s fine. What makes me harp on these odd shortcomings is that I love Soderbergh’s vision artistically… he just can’t quite seem to turn that vision into a complete piece. He gets 70% there and goes “eh, it’s good enough”. Spoilers, it isn't.
Kimi earns a 7.2 here because of the intrigue of the journey, the excellently weird filming techniques [even if they’re held back by some boring editing], its incredibly fun use of sound during certain scenes, some clever writing quirks, and the lead performance by Zoë Kravitz. All of those things are mid-to-hi 8’s for me, though most of those things exist in isolated pods that don't mean anything to a larger narrative or message. As a 7+, however, I do recommend this film. Just don’t expect anymore from it than its short IMDB synopsis suggests:
An agoraphobic Seattle tech worker uncovers evidence of a crime.
