Klara’s new home is a farmhouse out on its own, surrounded by a field of bright yellow wheat. She’s a robot designed to keep someone company, and the house is a place where grief is clearly on its way. Even so, the first thing the film asks you to care about is that she can’t manage the stairs.
Moments later you’ve landed in a sugary family drama about death. That lurch from slapstick into sadness sums up Klara and the Sun, and the film does it again and again until the credits roll.
Taika Waititi won’t let a scene breathe
Humor has always come first for Waititi, whether that works or not. He got laughs out of children dancing through a tragedy. He discovered that the God of Thunder could be funny. Hand him a scene of any kind and he’ll pull a joke out of it.
This time I wished he’d restrained himself. He could have passed on the easy punchline, or on one more odd standoff between two actors. A story about a robot devoted to the people around her would land with more force if the audience could stay in those moments without stopping to laugh. The film never allows it.
There’s no shortage of drama or heartbreak, but almost every emotional moment is interrupted by a childish bit that signals none of it should be taken too seriously. Considering the subject, it should be taken seriously. I left the theater with wet eyes and a sense of irritation, partly touched by a film that kept getting in its own way. That could point to a more cynical world. It could just as easily point to a weaker movie.
Robots waiting in the shop window
The film adapts heavy material, a novel by Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro. Jenna Ortega is Klara, an Artificial Friend (AF), living in a near-future dystopia that’s both polluted and overpopulated. Children undergo medical procedures to boost their intelligence, and people have created AI robots to keep those children company.
Klara’s home at first is a robot store run by a shopkeeper (Natasha Lyonne), where she and the other AFs wait nervously for someone to buy them. They charge up in sunlight and pass the days posing in the window to draw in customers, acting out shopping trips or skiing. Picture mannequins that are alive and see the world with total innocence.
A sale spares them the worst outcome they can imagine, which is being broken down for parts and rebuilt into the next generation of tech. Their goal is to do what they were made for, keeping someone company, and then retire to the Yard, a place where outdated robots can rest and be happy.
That changes when Josie (Mia Tharia) notices Klara through the glass. The two lock eyes and connect right away. Josie brings Klara home, although her mother, Chrissie (Amy Adams), had wanted a newer model capable of more tasks.
Ortega steps away from Wednesday
The film then becomes a coming-of-age story. Klara settles into life at the farmhouse and works to win over Chrissie and Melania (Rachel House), the housekeeper. Every so often, each of them threatens to pack her back into her box and return her to the store.
Audiences who love non-human characters that act as blank canvases for our emotions (Pinocchio, or David from Spielberg’s A.I.) will recognize the template. Klara had a shot at joining that group, and the ingredients are there.
There’s something slightly off about her. She notices everything, stays upbeat, and has a habit of balancing on one leg like a flamingo when her mind wanders. She also glitches often. Unfamiliar places or heavy stress overload her and send her into a reboot. During those episodes the camera switches to her POV, and what she sees breaks into a fractured grid that zooms in and out as she tries to process it all. It’s among the film’s most inventive touches.
The part also gives Ortega a welcome break from the Wednesday register audiences now expect from her. Klara is a skilled mimic who can copy other people’s voices, including Chrissie’s and Josie’s, and Ortega gets their mannerisms and expressions exactly right.
The gags take over
There’s only so much Ortega can do. The script loads her with jokes that fall flat and a childishness that gets tiresome quickly.
Those jokes are behind the film’s biggest flaw: tonal whiplash. In Waititi’s defense, this is far from his most outrageous comedy (nobody plays a goofy Hitler as an imaginary best friend this time). It may be his least inspired, though. Some scenes are moving on their own and a few jokes work, yet the film never settles into a rhythm.
A world where AIs serve humans and children undergo procedures to get smarter ought to give a film a lot to work with. The script ignores nearly all of it because the next joke always comes first. Its curiosity about Klara goes no further than her quirks, and she becomes a Manic Pixie Dream Robot for the people around her, showing them how to feel empathy, cope with grief and live in the moment.
This is 2026. By now we ought to have smarter things to say about AI and human connection than clichés and a robot that can’t climb stairs.
Klara and the Sun is playing in theaters now.