When Steven Soderbergh first announced his next film, “Kimi,” with Zoe Kravitz for HBO Max — the one that’ll arrive after “No Sudden Move,” which is being released today, not much about it was known. It was dubbed a mystery thriller, written by veteran screenwriter David Koepp, and about an “agoraphobic tech worker that stumbles on some evidence of a violent crime over the course of a routine work project.” Intriguing but still slightly vague.
READ MORE: Steven Soderbergh Working With Zoe Kravitz On A New HBO Max Film, ‘KIMI’
But in conversation, this week with the Happy Sad Confused podcast, promoting the aforementioned “No Sudden Move,” Soderbergh, who discussed myriad topics, including a mild little fun dig at his pals the Russo Brothers, plainly described the film as essentially a psychological techno-thriller in the vein of Francis Ford Coppola‘s “The Conversation,” only centering on many of the listening issues of contemporary modern devices like Alex and Siri. It’s also a film set in a post-Covid world which causes greater anxieties.
“[That it’s set] in the aftermath of [Covid-19] is an aspect of the story,” Soderbergh explained, teasing the psychological agoraphobia issues the lead character faces. “Overlaid [on top of that] is a very contemporary, zeitgeist-y issue of giant tech companies that have a lot of listening devices in a lot of homes, and what are they picking up? And what if you worked for one of these companies analyzing streams that have been flagged for some reason or another. That the voice recognition software — that there’s some aspect of the recording that it doesn’t understand. It gets kicked [up] to a human analyst to listen to it. And she hears something that sounds… not cool.”
The podcast host says “Kimi” sounds like a 2021 version of “The Conversation,” Coppola’s 1977 classic about surveillance, privacy, and paranoia, to which Soderbergh says, “Pretty much. And a little [Hitchcock‘s] ‘Rear-Window‘ and a little bit of [David Fincher‘s] ‘Panic Room,’ so it’s all my favorite stuff. It’s an idea that David Koepp floated to me a couple of years ago. My philosophy when people approach you with things, if it’s not a ‘hell, yeah,’ it’s a no. This was a ‘hell, yeah.'”
“Kimi” stars Zoe Kravitz and also Byron Bowers, Jaime Camil, Jacob Vargas, Erika Christensen (“Traffic”), Derek DelGaudio, and Devin Ratray from “Mosaic.” Like most of his films, the picture had a strong first edit by the time shooting was over, and most people don’t realize Soderbergh was working on it at the same time he was directing the Oscars earlier this year. Knowing his speed and efficiency, it would not shock if HBO Max releases it by the end of the year and or it shows up at a film festival in the fall (“Let Them All Talk” was originally intended for TIFF and then Covid-19 changed HBO’s plans).
Happy Sad Confused also asked about the “Sex, Lies & Videotape” sequel. Though Soderbergh doesn’t sound like he’s in any rush to make it, he did suggest there’s a good reason to make it, as it’ll explore a theme he’s never explored before. While he was vague on what that theme was, his thoughts on the why of making it sounded intriguing. “The theme in that movie is not going away anytime soon,” he said, noting that its status is, he feels like it needs another rewrite. “There’s no hurry. I’d rather it be done right than soon, but I do want to do it. It was all generated out of a desire to address a topic that I hadn’t really found a way to address yet. For whatever reason, I connected it with these [‘Sex, Lies & Videotape’] sisters, thirty years later. And so that was a random marriage of two things that I think is close to being realized and is different enough at the same time [that] people will understand when they see it, why I wanted to do it.”
Those are the newsiest updates, but back to that Russos bit (lol). The host tells Soderbergh that the Russos told him that “Out Of Sight” was an influence on “Avengers: Infinity War.” While he does praise them as people and self-starting hard workers, he says dryly retorts about the shared anecdote, “Well, they’re gonna have to generate an essay that proves that was an influence, but I’ll leave that to them.”
‘No Sudden Move’: A Thrilling Yet Thoughtful Throwback From Steven Soderbergh [Tribeca Review]
Listen to the full conversation below. “No Sudden Movie” is now available theatrically and simultaneously on HBO and HBO Max. Hopefully, we see “Kimi” before the end of 2021.
There is not really any news bits you didn’t know in this Marc Maron podcast with Soderbergh, but it’s definitely still worth listening to.
