AI meets YA head-on in this curiously flat comedy-drama Klara and the sunwhich illustrates almost perfectly how ill-prepared we are for the technological revolution that is coming. In theory, Taiki Waititi should be a perfect fit for Kazuo Ishiguru’s dystopian – or East he? — 2021 novel, given the director’s affinity for a very particular, particular type of gritty reality-based comedy, but Clara simply doesn’t deliver on any front. Instead, we’re presented with a sporadically funny meditation on life and premature death that, like Mark Romanek’s dark attempt at Ishiguro’s 2005 novel, Never let me gofails to capture the intricacies of speculative literary science fiction.
If you hated Waititi’s 2019 film Jojo Rabbitand the chances are exceedingly high that you did, Klara and the sun It’s pretty much the same movie but in the future. But, as contested as it is, Jojo Rabbit – like all of Waititi’s films – came from a good place, and what we must now determine is whether he strayed from his trajectory or whether we did. What was once so endearing, so naive and so vulnerable simply doesn’t work anymore in this film, and the liminal space between children’s films and young-at-heart adult films that he explored so incredibly well in his work – no better than in 2016’s. In search of wild people – now seems like an awkward no-man’s land between two very incompatible stories.
At least it starts with a spring in its step. Klara (Jenna Ortega) is a lonely puppy in a robot store, praying to the sun in hopes that she will be taken home by a passing punter (“Please let today be my day! Let me be chosen!”). Klara is a B1 robot for sale at The Friend Store, which is facing stiff competition from Fancy Friends, where new Bluetooth-active B3 models are taking over from the recently disgraced B2 models (“Is this the model that killed these people?” asks the potential Klara buyer).
The Friend Store is a candy-colored prelude to what’s about to happen, starring the wonderful Natasha Lyonne as the store manager, a mother who loves her stock more than the outside world seems to. It’s hard to say what year it is, but it’s clear that we’re in a future in which AI is evolving rapidly. But at the same time, it is a future that is moving backwards; The store manager speaks nostalgically about the Internet, which was apparently taken away from everyone after the last world war (“You should have love he”).
While posing artfully in the store window, Klara attracts the attention of Josie (Mia Tharia), who persuades her mother Chrissie (Amy Adams) to buy her as a companion. The film is full of theories as to why, in a town where bars have names like Ho Bots, people want artificial companions, and Klara’s immediate circle of friends is open to all options. We want a sociable and popular owner (a sportsman); another wants someone who is needy and nerdy, with low self-esteem and “who thinks he’s fat.”
Klara, however, lucks out with Josie, who, in an effort to raise the already high stakes, has been genetically “raised” by a medical procedure that makes her a mathematician. Josie lives in an isolated country house with her less-than-attentive mother, but the real reason Chrissie wants to get a robot for her daughter isn’t just to buy her a friend: Josie is seriously ill. From there, the plot involves Klara discovering just how sick Josie is and what she can do to save her, a journey that will take a very dark turn.
At that point, what’s left of the pleasure all but evaporates; Ortega is a fantastic cheerleader for the promised spirit of the film but, after leaving Lyonne and the store, all that is suddenly behind her; what awaits us is the story of a mother who has already lost one daughter and is preparing to lose another. The possibilities of artificial life come into play here in a very big way, especially with Steve Buscemi as the mysterious benefactor Capaldi, but, honestly, you’d have to be really thick enough not to see what’s coming.
What’s the problem everywhere? all about Klara and the sun is obvious, especially an excruciating scene in which Josie meets her new classmates, who listen to endless avant-garde music, wear unwearable avant-garde clothes and – are you ready for this? — lispas if the clothes and music weren’t enough. It’s a strange moment that undermines everything the film has set in motion; for all its naivety, there’s a real back-and-forth about the film’s intentions here, and it’s not a comfortable experience. The recent BBC series Ann Droid covered most of these ideas quite majestically, in an adult way that was also ridiculously endearing.
Likewise, on paper, Klara and the sun This is a great idea, a way for adults to explain mortality to their children while preparing for redundancy. It’s just a shame the film wasn’t made.
Title: Klara and the sun
Distributer: Sony Photos
Release date: October 23, 2026
Festival: London
Director: Taiki Waititi
Screenwriters: Taika Waititi and Dahvi Waller; based on the book by Kazuo Ishiguru)
Cast: Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Mia Tharia, Aran Murphy, Steve Buscemi, Natasha Lyonne
Rating: PG-13
Operating time: 1h 56m
Gn entert
