Review: Klara and the Sun – Artificially sentimental
Directed by Taika Waititi
Starring Jenna Ortega, Mia Tharia, Steve Buscemi, Amy Adams
6/10
Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s bestselling novel starts with a delightful spark, but loses itself in fields of melancholy. What would you do for love? It’s the question at the heart of Klara and the Sun, this science-fiction drama that explores the lengths we go to for the people we love and whether our best intentions always lead to the best outcomes.
Klara (Jenna Ortega) is an Artificial Friend, a robot designed to provide companionship, who is purchased by gifted teenager Josie (Mia Tharia). With her wide-eyed curiosity and unwavering optimism, Klara must navigate the confusing world of human relationships while trying to help Josie and her mother, Chrissie (Amy Adams), through difficult circumstances.
The opening scenes in the store are genuinely hilarious, as Klara observes the world with the earnestness of someone who has yet to learn our social conventions, and her subsequent fish-out-of-water moments are equally heartwarming. Ortega’s physical acting is excellent, using outlandish movements, gestures, and expressions to bring Klara’s endearing artificial nature to life. Beneath the comedy, however, lie some weighty themes. The pressure to be normal and the relentless pursuit of perfection all collide with a parent’s desire to give their child every possible advantage. Chrissie’s determination to secure the best future for Josie raises an uncomfortable question: when does parental love become so consumed by fear, grief, and ambition that it risks harming the very person it seeks to protect?
The film also explores the role of faith when life becomes difficult. Klara’s belief in the Sun’s power to help Josie is touching but also raises questions. Is faith measured by whether we get the outcome we want, our actions of sacrifice, or by our willingness to keep believing when we cannot control what happens next? Klara and the Sun speaks to the loneliness and disconnection of modern society. In a world where technology promises to meet our emotional needs, perhaps the greatest irony is that we are still struggling to connect with one another.
Unfortunately, once the ending becomes predictable, the film begins to drag. Waititi’s quirky humorous approach gives the story a distinctly different tone from Ishiguro’s novel, and while the film makes its emotional themes obvious, it lacks the book’s subtlety and introspection, leaving less room for audiences to sit with its unanswered questions.
Klara and the Sun has a charming opening, a standout central performance and plenty of ideas worth pondering. But in a story about the extraordinary complexity of human emotions, a little more subtlety might have gone a long way.
MELISSA MANN