Kimi is a 2022 thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp. It was released on HBO Max on February 10, 2022.
Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz) is a tech worker living in Seattle during the COVID-19 pandemic and employed by a fictional corporation that manufactures Kimi (voiced by Betsy Brantley), a smart home product similar to Amazon's Alexa. She is also a severe agoraphobe who won't leave her apartment, but her job allows her to work from home, analyzing incoming data streams from Kimi for improved voice recognition. In one such stream she hears what seems to be a violent crime, but is rebuffed when attempting to report this with her company. To do more, Angela must face her greatest fear and leave her apartment, with the streets filled by protests against a controversial law that restricts homeless people's movements in the city.
Supporting actors include Byron Bowers, Jaime Camil, and Erika Christensen.
Tropes used in this film:
- Action Survivor: Angela doesn't have any self-defense training or experience, but she manages to fend off a trio of thugs using some well-timed distractions and a familiarity with home construction.
- Assassin Outclassin': Three hired hitmen kidnap and plan to murder Angela in her apartment to make it look like a burglary gone wrong, but she is able to turn the tables and kill all three with a nail gun.
- Badass Bystander:
- Rivas's two thugs attempt an audacious daylight abduction as Angela walks through a protest, apparently believing that their actions will be lost in the chaos and noise. Instead, nearby protestors notice and spring to her defense, surrounding the van to prevent its escape and prying her out. Afterwards, Rivas mutters spitefully about how some people refuse to stay out of other people's business.
- That neighbor with the binoculars shows up in the third act to confront Angela's would-be assassins, taking a knife to help her escape their clutches.
- Blaming the Victim: Angela relates that after going to the police about her rape, they put her on trial instead of the rapist. It's not explained exactly how this happened, but it's made clear nothing came of her complaint.
- Bland-Name Product: Kimi is this for Amazon’s Alexa - a smart home product raising questions about privacy. Alexa is itself named as a competitor of Kimi.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Brad – the owner of the company that created Kimi, and probably its founder too – could count as this; although his unethical and illegal actions may not seem directly related to his business (he raped or assaulted a woman and had her killed to cover it up), he probably figures that if his crimes are witnessed via Kimi and publicly disclosed, that could be very bad for both him and his business anyway. (In the end, he does get arrested over the scandal this causes.)
- Chekhov's Gun: In the beginning of the film, Angela complains to some construction workers on the floor above her who are using a nail gun while she’s trying to work. During the finale, she retrieves the nail gun and uses it to kill the three assassins who are after her.
- Chekhov's Gunman: That neighbor with the binoculars who's shown a few times in passing becomes very important in the third act, when he becomes a Badass Bystander.
- Chekhov's Skill: Angela reveals that she has knowledge of home construction due to her father. In the third act, she uses this knowledge to crawl between floors in her apartment building and convert a nailgun into an improvised firearm.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Despite her awkwardly thin assertion that she's on Angela's side, Natalie Chowdhury only has the company's interest at heart.
- Damsel in Distress: Angela escapes the thugs after some other people come to help her twice.
- Damsel out of Distress: In the end, Angela manages to kill all three assassins who have kidnapped her.
- Engineered Public Confession: Samantha, the woman whose stream Angela overhears, attempted to record a full confession from Brad that he raped her. It doesn't work, but she does inadvertently record her own murder, which he ordered. It ultimately takes him down.
- Establishing Character Moment:
- Brad is introduced taking a video conference interview in what appears to be a classy library. From a different angle, we see that he's actually in his garage, wearing sweatpants below his suit jacket and tie. Beneath his respectable front, he's a fraud.
- Angela is introduced going about her very meticulous morning routine but falling to pieces when she tries to venture outside. This establishes her very exacting and strong-willed nature that is at odds with her mental illness.
- "Friends" Rent Control: Angela owns or rents a very spacious loft studio apartment in downtown Seattle. In the established 2020s time period of the movie, such an area would retail for well over a million dollars even in less desirable neighborhoods, or rent for several thousand per month. She affords this (along with a huge amount of tech, only some of which is work related) with a job at a tech company doing very basic grunt work that doesn't seem like it would pay particularly well.
- Gaslighting: Natalie Chowdhury, tries to use it Angela's history of rape to get her to dismiss her report. Angela, however, never falls for it.
- Grammar Nazi: Rivas objects to Yuri's high cost by saying it's "usurious." Yuri notes that the word does not apply because he's not charging interest.
- Hikikomori: Angela is this due to her agoraphobia. She hasn't got out in at least months and strongly fears doing so. Eventually she does to report the crime she's overheard. The ending shows she's over this and is happily outside with Terry.
- Improvised Weapon: In the end, Angela finds the nailgun the contractor was using upstairs and uses it as a weapon.
- Karma Houdini: That blond woman who provides a distraction for Rivas's other two goons is never seen again after the abduction, and we don't see her killed or brought to justice. She apparently gets away.
- Late to the Action: During a particularly tense moment in the climax, Terry (Locked Out of the Loop regarding Angela's investigation into the Samantha recordings) walks across the street to her apartment, only to turn around after realizing he's forgotten something. By the time he's returned with a bouquet, she's killed all of her would-be killers and is in the process of calling the police about her ordeal.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Angela is brought back to her apartment so that her death can be staged like a robbery gone bad.
- Ms. Fanservice: Angela is shown topless after she and Terry have sex, then walking around in her underwear a bit. She's played by the attractive Zoë Kravitz.
- Next Thing They Knew: Terry comes to Angela's door, has a conversation briefly with her, then the next scene cuts to them having sex in her bed.
- Nonconformist Dyed Hair: Angela is an agoraphobic shut-in who works from home; her misfit status is accentuated by her bright blue hair. In the end, her willingness to go outside and genuinely connect with Terry is highlighted with a hair color switch to pink.
- The Peeping Tom: Angela's neighbor often spies on her with his binoculars. While creepy, it actually comes in handy when he spots her as she's being dragged into the building and confronts the thugs, getting stabbed for his trouble while allowing her to escape. Despite his peeping, the man (Kevin) turns out to be a good guy who'd been a shut-in like Angela.
- Professional Killer: Antonio Rivas, plus his two henchmen, are assassins. Brad hired them to kill his mistress, Samantha, and then Angela after she discovered evidence of this.
- Punchclock Villain: Yuri, the hacker hired by Rivas. He hunts down Angela in his living room while an elderly woman sits on a couch and sews in the background. He fetches a beer from the fridge while he works and even says he likes Angela for knowing her tech.
- Rape as Backstory: It turns out Angela's present agoraphobia results from being raped in the past.
- Rape as Drama: The initial crime which Angela overhears is a woman, Samantha, being raped (or about to be). Her boyfriend, Angela's boss Brad, is the rapist. He then orders her killed to cover it up.
- "Rear Window" Homage: With the protagonist confined to her home by agoraphobia rather than a broken leg.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: The ending shows Angela's dyed her hair a bright pink, as she's overcome her agoraphobia and happily goes outside with her boyfriend.
- Running Gag: Kimi responding to everyone who says the word "Kimi" in conversation, causing them to have to interrupt what they're saying to turn her back off.
- Sensual Slavs: Played as a joke with Angela's Romania-based coworker Darius, who scoffs at the American workplace harassment rules and relentlessly flirts with Angela. He's annoying, but largely harmless, and provides Angela with key information as she investigates the mystery surrounding Samantha's assault and eventual murder.
- Shown Their Work:
- Unlike most films that include a nailgun used as an Improvised Weapon, this one acknowledges that you have to fasten back the safety switch before it will start shooting nails through the air.
- Angela is drugged by a Bulgarian umbrella
, a real device that has been used in assassinations.
- Shy Blue-Haired Girl: Angela has hers dyed bright blue at first. She's a shut-in and withdrawn from other people (though she does have Terry, a friend-with-benefits who's hoping for a more serious relationship).
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The pulse-pounding chase out of the Amygdala offices is set to ethereal music.
- Tech Bro: Brad, founder and owner of the company behind Kimi, is well into the Corrupt Corporate Executive variant of this.
- Third Act Stupidity: Rivas and his goons are reasonably smart through the first two acts of the film as their grip tightens on Angela. In the third act, however, they get pretty dumb.
- Glasses Thug sets his knife on the coffee table between his captives and himself rather than keep it under his control. This results in him losing the knife and getting stabbed with it.
- Rivas seems to spontaneously forget that his target is actively in the process of shooting nails at him, causing him to get shot with nails.
- Took a Level in Badass: Angela at the end efficiently manages to kill all three hardened killers in her apartment with a nail gun.
- The Tooth Hurts: Angela is suffering from a toothache at the start, but, being an agoraphobe, won't see a dentist. Rivas tortures her later by smacking her in the mouth.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to that blond woman who helps drug Angela? She's gone by the time the van arrives at its destination.
- Wrench Wench: Aside from her tech skills, Angela also knows about construction due to having a contractor for a father. She diagnoses what the remodeling crew upstairs is doing wrong just by the noise of it and quickly offers spot-on advices on the matter. This becomes a Chekhov's Skill in the third act.
