Review: Klara and the Sun

There's two different things going on throughout Klara and the Sun, and they're different enough to make it unlikely that anyone's going to enjoy the entirety of this film. In fact, while it's possible you might like one or the other, it's also possible you won't like either; the math just doesn't add up.

While it's tempting to point the finger at director Taika Waititi, who has fallen out of favour with film buffs of late, he does a decent enough job of making some parts of this into a Waititi film - so much so that you can see why he got the gig of turning Kazuo Ishiguro's thoughtful and sombre novel into a sunny and upbeat film. Was that the right approach? Considering the parts he makes his own are usually the parts that grate, probably not.

So it's the future, there's been a war and the internet is gone, but we have lifelike robots now and people buy them to be Artificial Friends for their teenagers. Klara (Jenna Ortega) is a bit weird - she talks to the sun - and an outdated model, but she manages to make a connection with Josie (Mia Tharia) and gets purchased, unlike every other robot in the crappy run-down store.

Josie's mother (Amy Adams) isn't really keen on Klara, and it takes a little while to settle in, which becomes yet another excuse for some lightweight wacky moments (you'd think a robot designed for home use would know what stairs are). 

Nothing to this point is particularly connected to any human emotion beyond Tim Burton-esque whimsy, and you'd be forgiven for thinking this was trying to be a fairy-tale take on the recent run of robot companion movies - though this does makes it explicit that Klara is not a sexbot, unlike every other home robot of the last few years.

Fans of Ishiguro's previous science fiction novel-turned movie Never Let Me Go will in no way be surprised to learn that Josie is having health issues, nor that a love triangle of sorts develops between her, Klara, and local technical boy Rick (Aran Murphy). Neither of them are all that memorable as teenagers go, but this promises to provide at least some emotional realism. 

But that side of things is largely skipped over - there's jokes about a robot scarecrow to be made. Though he does end up contributing to the plot, unlike the snooty comedy teens who show up for an extended scene to remind us that Waititi has pretty much given up on subtlety in his comedy work.

Klara is aggressively cheerful and perky throughout, which makes sense for a robot companion but does tend to limit the emotions on offer. Having a determinedly upbeat robot try to solve a bunch of unresolved trauma and family conflict would be tricky for any director; it's fair to say that Waititi 's usual approach of going "hey, let's keep things light and all the grim stuff will work as subtext" (see: Jojo Rabbit) doesn't work here.

Things get more interesting towards the end when the conflicts inherent in the story come to the fore and basically tear things apart. But even then Waititi doesn't take his foot off the whimsy pedal, leaving things messy like a pile of spilled candy when committing to a clear tone for the final scenes would have been more satisfying - if possibly a bit more bleak.

The whole thing comes off like someone somewhere was determined to make this book into a movie (and publisher Harper Collins is listed amongst the production companies), but then decided that the way to go was to downplay all the emotional pain and questions about loss and grief that made it more than just a colourful romp. Does not compute.

- Anthony Morris