Kimi
Short description
Kimi is a crime thriller set in Seattle during the COVID-19 pandemic. Angela Childs, a tech worker with agoraphobia, reviews audio data for the company behind a popular voice assistant called KIMI. While checking a routine stream, she comes across a recording that appears to capture a violent crime. When she tries to report what she has found, her employer offers resistance and bureaucracy rather than help, prompting her to pursue the matter herself. Doing so means confronting her fear of leaving her apartment and venturing into a city marked by pandemic restrictions and protests.
Steven Soderbergh directed the film, his thirtieth in chronological order, following No Sudden Move and preceding Magic Mike's Last Dance. David Koepp wrote the screenplay and produced alongside Michael Polaire. Zoë Kravitz leads the cast as Angela, with Byron Bowers, Jaime Camil, Erika Christensen, Derek DelGaudio and Robin Givens among the principal players; 42 cast members and 115 crew members are credited. The production had a budget of 4 million dollars and was released by New Line Cinema and HBO Max.
Audience response has been moderate: on IMDb the film holds 6.3 out of 10 from over 37,500 votes, and on TMDB 6.2 out of 10 from about 1,000 votes. Critics were more favorable, giving it 7.5 out of 10 across 127 reviews. The film runs 89 minutes.
What's left behind the scenes
- In one of the scenes with Angela, an umbrella flashes on the screen. This is a reference to the murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in London, where he had fled from Bulgaria and continued to criticize the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc countries. In September 1978, while heading to work, he felt a prick in his leg and saw a stranger drop an umbrella, pick it up, and then leave in a taxi. Four days later, Markov died from poisoning caused by a toxin delivered via the umbrella prick.
- In one of the scenes with Angela, an umbrella flashes on the screen. This is a reference to the murder of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov in 1978 in London, where he fled from Bulgaria and continued to criticize the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc. In September of that year, he was on his way to work when he felt a prick in his leg and saw a stranger drop an umbrella, but he picked it up and then left in a taxi. Four days later, Markov died from poison injected into his body by the umbrella. It was later revealed that this was one of the rare cases where a device, as if from a James Bond film, was used in real life.
- The company is called 'Amygdala'. In reality, the amygdala is an area of the brain responsible for the formation of emotions.
- Unlike other projects filmed during the coronavirus pandemic, in this case, quarantine restrictions had to be observed during filming, and furthermore, the pandemic itself is one of the elements of the plot. The characters in the film wear masks, and in one conversation, Angela admits that the coronavirus exacerbated her agoraphobia, whereas before the pandemic her condition was improving.
- The film references a case involving Amazon in Arkansas. It concerns an investigation into a murder, where police asked the company to provide recordings from a 'smart' speaker in 2015, suspecting its owner of the crime. Two years later, the court refused to consider the information obtained in this way, and the charges against the suspect had to be dropped.
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