Of all the filmmakers who tried to persist when COVID made its initial devastating impact on the film industry, Steven Soderbergh always felt like the one who was the most primed and ready for it. In 2011, he and Scott Z. Burns basically predicted COVID itself with Contagion, and in 2019, he and Tarell Alvin McCraney gave one hell of an analogy for how much streaming and decentralisation would need to fill in the gap once lockdowns started happening in High Flying Bird. Between his place as a vanguard of independent cinema, and his championing for availability of both product and production, given his use of consumer-grade smartphones to film High Flying Bird and Unsane, he is a cinematic voice that seemed destined to thrive in this environment.
And yet this film is the first time he’s explicitly dealing with the pandemic itself, using it as the backdrop for a thriller soaked in surveillance paranoia and techno-anxiety. The title refers to an in-universe smart speaker, a la the Amazon Echo, which instead of relying on algorithms has real workers listening in on all the recordings, ostensibly to clarify any commands that Kimi itself isn’t able to process. Already, this sets up some interesting and rather unsettling questions about the extent to which customers open themselves up to this kind of all-day surveillance in their homes. What’s more, by bringing a human element into the device’s workings, it proffers a rather uneasy question of what is worse: Computers listening in on everything you say, or other people listening in on everything you say.
From there, the story focuses on Zoë Kravitz as Angela, one of the Kimi interpreters who, on a routine analysis of an audio stream, uncovers what sounds like a violent domestic incident. For the first half, David Koepp’s writing and the insular cinematography from ‘Peter Andrews’ do a lot to reinforce the extent of her isolation. Part of this is due to COVID lockdown conditions, but there’s also the fact that Angela had been dealing with severe agoraphobia before that, complete with some highly unnerving depictions of her going through panic attacks when attempting to leave her home.
With that addition, the musings on our relationship with technology, and how much casual permission we give it to basically run our lives, combine with the struggles for security and even intimacy to show a push-and-pull dynamic between us and our tech. The main reason that a lot of us even made it through the initial run of quarantines and lockdowns is because technology has advanced to the point where things like food, social communication, and pastimes can be accessed remotely. At a time when staying indoors became the Golden Rule for staying healthy, having everything at our fingertips digitally became vital. And when it becomes part of one’s home routine, even the discomfort of isolation can be manageable. That is, until there comes a point where you need to go outside.
Such is the case for Angela, who tries to go up the management structure to figure out what to do with the disturbing recordings she has happened upon, and who finds herself at the business end of some Unsane levels of gaslighting. The main premise is based on shit that’s actually happened with smart speakers, like when Amazon shut down requests for Echo recordings to be used as evidence in a murder investigation back in 2019. As such, the Amygdala corporation behind Kimi wouldn’t want something like this to come out on the eve of their IPO… especially if it turns out that the murder had more than just that connection to their business.
Thus begins the second half, and when the thrills get really intense. The stable camera work to show Angela’s home goes full handheld and Dutch tilt, along with sound mixing that is eerily reminiscent of sensory overloads I’ve had for myself out in the world, and the underlying paranoia of technology turns into full-blown danger as Kimi tries to make her way from her home to somewhere she can get help with the recording. Along with themes reminiscent of Unsane, the depiction of visceral dread and tension is about on par as well, creating some extremely tangible sensations of fear throughout. Beyond anything to do with COVID, this film makes the act of going outside look and feel like the most terrifying experience ever.
The commentary on capitalist structures and the evils committed to maintain them are classic Soderbergh by this point, but with the added genre touches in its conspiracy thriller setup and framing, along with the best script David Koepp has delivered in years, it takes on an inescapably relatable edge that makes it hit a nerve in more ways than one. It’s a modernised and tech-savvy update on the Rear Window stuck-at-home thriller (like a less adolescent Disturbia, or Copycat without the sensationalism), and with how trimmed-down it is, the pacing never lets up. Another winner from Soderbergh.
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