Kimi – A Review

Is it easier to have agoraphobia if you live in the world’s largest, most beautiful apartment? Maybe. As I watched this film in my apartment one tenth the size of Angela’s (a fantastic performance by Zoë Kravitz), I fell for the trap of letting the pretty things distract from the dark ones underneath. Stephen Soderbergh’s latest film KIMI masterfully makes fun of our (for the most part) willingness to accept the horrors of mass surveillance and indifference to human suffering as long as they don’t affect a corporation’s bottom line and continue to deliver us the conveniences we’ve become accustomed to.

And it’s available now to watch in the comfort of our own homes on HBO Max or Crave. KIMI is an Amazon Alexa type device listening in on our lives more often than we assume. It’s Angela’s job to correct and catalogue small errors of understanding the device makes while listening to everything we do and say. Much like in a real-life case where two Amazon employees in Romania were reportedly told not to interfere after overhearing a potential sexual assault through an Alexa, Angela hears a violent attack on an unknown woman. She then struggles to confirm what actually happened while her employers at Amygdala Corp. do everything in their power to stop her. They have an initial public offering to make after all.

With obvious connections to Hitchock’s Rear Window, the film also has a strong pull towards the Home Alone franchise. Devon Ratray (who reprised his role as Kevin McAllister’s older brother Buzz in last year’s Home Sweet Home Alone) here plays a mysterious neighbour across the way from Angela. He looks kind enough, but is his longing sweet or sinister? In fact, just like in KIMI, Home Sweet Home Alone also features a protagonist using an Alexaish device to foil home invaders.

Other familiar, comedic faces pop up. Most prominently, stand-up comic Byron Bowers plays Angela’s love interest, frustrated at her sporadic behavior. Wet Hot American Summer’s David Wain shows up as Angela’s dentist in a virtual appointment, as does prolific comedic actor Andy Daly as an Amygdala Corp. higher-up scolding Angela through the computer for bringing attention to the assault she may have overheard. All these comedic voices play their roles very straight though, in just the same way the ultimate joke of the whole movie will get delivered.

The film opens with the kind, familiar, sad face of Derek DelGaudio, magician and performance artist known for 2020’s critically acclaimed In & Of Itself. DelGaudio plays Amygdala’s CEO who we initially see in a TV news Zoom interview about taking the company public. He talks into the little glass hole at the top of the computer, but we first see him from behind and framed by the ubiquitous ring light that flickers in the eyes of social media hopefuls and well-lit virtual meeting attendees.

The movie camera reveals DelGaudio’s character is filming this very important interview in his garage, then that the clutter surrounding him has been pushed to one side out of view, and finally that he’s been wearing pyjama bottoms below his suit jacket. We then quickly find out the true things he’s hiding, as he nervously takes a phone call from a threatening voice.

From here on out the pace is swift. The story establishes Angela’s life and personal relationships, especially the synchrony she has with her own KIMI device, before throwing her into the menacing world of people doing bad things to protect money. The conclusion of the film happens so efficiently, all things set up get paid off, that we can almost mistakenly believe this movie has a triumphant happy ending. How can we not when we see Angela smiling and holding hands with her love interest outside her apartment? She has seemingly not only defeated the bad guys, but her own agoraphobia.

Just as the happy ending in Home Alone can’t really cover up the deep neglect shown for Kevin McAllister by his parents, the film ends with Angela smiling in an 80s-style freezeframe of triumph like The Breakfast Club. The film lures us into feeling happy and that justice has been served, but then winks at us with how easily it pretends all these dark, disturbing aspects of modern life have been fixed.