With an opening shot looking through a ring light and onto the expressionless face of a tech CEO, Steven Soderberghthe latest virtuoso thriller, KIMI-written by David Koep (Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider Man)—hooks you right away. Set amid Seattle’s fictionalized post-lockdown pandemic and protests against the city’s anti-homelessness policy, the sub-90-minute thriller offers a searing yet slyly humorous portrayal of the modern tech landscape, as well as state and corporate abuse (and neglect) of women victims of sexual assault.

KIMI is a rendition of the weird-hermit-witness-to-a-crime genre that represents not only the physical window, but the virtual windows as well. Zoe Kravitz stars Angela Childs, an agoraphobic tech worker with PTSD who has created what feels like a safe space in her spacious loft. She’s built a life of routine and efficiency, pedaling her peloton furiously and methodically closing error tickets for the startup she works for: Amygdala, which offers an Alexa-like virtual assistant called Kimi. She faces her naturally impatient mother (a thrilling virtual cameo from Robin Givens), who struggles to listen to his daughter and instead offers infuriating advice on how to overcome her mental health issues. Angela also video chats with an inappropriate software engineer colleague overseas, Darius (Alex Dobrenko), who quips: “I’m in Romania, MeToo is at least 50 years from now.”

However, Angela manages to see a guy: her neighbor across the street, a prosecutor named Terry (comedian Byron Bower). The thing is, she can’t bring herself to leave the apartment to meet him in public.

With KIMI, Soderbergh continues to innovate on the skillful movement of the camera and the blocking of Crazy, Insane, and No sudden movement. It creates a visual dance with Kravitz’s adapted character work, turning Angela’s physicality more and more inward. When, in the course of her daily duties, Angela hears what she believes to be a woman being assaulted, she begins to dig – focused on isolating the audio and then understanding the context behind what she heard. This stubborn mission forces him to disregard the concerns of his demanding therapist, Dr. Sarah Burns (Emily Kurodaof Gilmore Girls fame) before finally finding the courage to leave his apartment.

That Angela’s breakthrough doesn’t align with her therapist’s clinical view speaks to the film’s anti-establishment thrust. Angela is continually protected by strangers, people who have no reason to help her other than a sense of solidarity felt internally (which Angela also feels for the woman whose assault she hears). The police let her down when it came to her own assault; the bosses, the therapist, and even the dentist she has a transactional relationship with don’t exactly show up when she tries to report the assault she hears. Even his attorney is not available to help him.

Instead, there are those outsiders and Kimi, an unchecked surveillance tool whose clumsy construction can be exploited not only by corrupt executives but also, ultimately, by workers. The result is a film that examines ideas of solidarity, revenge, corporate upward mobility, and society’s flippant acknowledgments of sexual assault in a more exciting and compelling way than the Oscar-winning film. Promising young woman.

Corn KIMI is not without controversy. A good guess as to why HBO Max has barely marketed the film — even making it hard for critics to watch it before its release this Thursday — is that its supporting cast includes Alone at home actor Devin Ratray. Ratray was charged last December with allegedly assaulting his girlfriend in a hotel room in Oklahoma. (Ratray denied the allegations.) That the accusations against Ratray would potentially trigger a response to the public relations crisis, with the result being KIMIThe mostly silent release on HBO Max’s platform darkly reflects the film’s message.

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