Introduction
Klara and the Sun is the latest movie from filmmaker Taika Waititi. Chances are good you’ve seen at least one of his movies because he directed the last two Thor movies. You may also know him from his role as the villain Antwan in Free Guy (2021). Or as the Oscar-winning writer (and non-Oscar-winning director) of Jojo Rabbit (2019). No matter how you know of him, you probably liked at least one of his movies. But you also are aware of how not-good Thor: Love and Thunder (2022) was. Like, really not good. Thankfully, Klara and the Sun leans much more toward Jojo Rabbit than Thor: Love and Thunder.
That’s not to say that Klara and the Sun isn’t without its share of problems. The film is adapted from a book of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro, and a couple of people noted that it strays a bit from the book. They didn’t elaborate on specifics, but did say that the book is much better than the film. That’s not surprising in the least because 99.9 percent of all books are considered better than the movies (that remaining 0.1 percent are all of the Harry Potter movies).
Synopsis
Because I was curious, I read through the plot summary of the book on the related Wikipedia page, which describes the same major plot points that appear in the film. Klara (Jenna Ortega) is a robot known as an Artificial Friend (AF). She and other AFs pose in a store, hoping to be purchased so they can fulfill their role as someone’s lifelong friend. One day, teenager Josie (Mia Tharia) spots Klara in the store’s window and takes a liking to her. Josie convinces her mother, Chrissie (Amy Adams), to buy Klara – despite Chrissie wanting to purchase a newer model robot from across the street. Klara couldn’t be happier.
Klara may be a robot, but her level of programming makes her the equivalent of a four-year-old. Since she had never left the store before meeting Josie, her entire knowledge base is a combination of observing people through the store’s window and what little the store manager (Natasha Lyonne) tells the AFs. Klara doesn’t know how to navigate stairs, is terrified of walking through a wheat field, thinks the sun is a god who lives in a barn on top of a hill that she can see from Josie’s house, and that automated street cleaners are monsters. It’s adorable, and you want Josie to ruffle Klara’s hair on multiple occasions.
Unfortunately, Chrissie is not amused with Klara. Chrissie is a no-nonsense mother who thinks Klara is an idiot, fully expecting to return Klara to the AF store within a week. After Klara is taken to live with Josie and Chrissie, we learn that Josie had a past surgery known as lifting, a procedure that altered her DNA to make her super smart. The procedure also comes with the risk that the recipient can become fatally ill and, yes, it turns out Josie is fatally ill. Upon learning this, Klara prays to the sun to heal Josie with its life-giving sunlight. Is that hair-rufflingly adorable or what?
Discussion
Despite the movie’s title and Josie’s prognosis, this movie isn’t really about Klara or Josie. It’s about Chrissie. More specifically, it’s about dealing with grief and loss. It turns out that Josie had a sister who died some time ago, and Chrissie has not coped well with the loss. She drinks, she inhales some sort of drug, and she greenlit the lifting procedure on Josie to, in Chrissie’s words, “give Josie every advantage possible.” It’s pretty obvious that the procedure was also intended to substitute for parenting. Ditto for bringing in Klara. Though, Chrissie has an ulterior motive for Klara that the film reveals later. Don’t worry, it’s nothing sinister. But it is the kind of thing that would piss off every teenager who ever lived.
All of that sounds pretty straightforward, but as I said, this film is not without problems. So much of the focus is on Klara and a plethora of other themes that the film’s real plot often gets lost in so much noise. Besides family strife, the film touches on ideas like social classes, religious delusion, faith, individualism, self-image, slavery, discrimination, the Internet, World War III, jealousy, artificial intelligence, devices substituting for human contact, and pollution. Yeah…there’s a lot of noise.
Further Analysis
A lot of that noise is just that – noise. Take, for example, the social classes. Klara has a party and a bunch of other lifted kids are there. An entire scene plays out where the kids insult Klara, Josie, and Josie’s un-lifted friend Rick (Aran Murphy). It’s the only time in the film these kids are seen, and it does nothing to further the plot or speak to the relationship between Josie and Chrissie. Or another scene where Josie spots Rick giving Klara a piggyback ride and becomes immediately jealous and suspicious that Klara is trying to steal Rick. Josie is super smart, but immediately forgets that Klara is a robot and an exceptionally naive one at that? Just, no.
Klara may be an idiot, but Josie has been genetically modified to not be an idiot. Luckily, the film has some good elements to balance out those problems. The most obvious one is Ortega’s performance. She is absolutely believable as a naive robot, delivering every line and emotion with pure earnestness. I don’t doubt for a moment that Klara truly believes the sun is a god, street-cleaning machines are monsters, and wheat is scary. It’s in every line of dialogue, every expression on her face, and every awkward step she takes in the fields or down the staircase.
Conclusion
I also quite enjoyed a minor character simply called Scarecrow (Jesse Griffin), another robot whose entire job is exactly what his name says, but who also exhibits much of the same naivete as Klara. Then there’s Adams, who is just as killer as Chrissie. If you’ve ever wondered what “stares daggers with her eyes” really looks like, Adams demonstrates that expression multiple times. And that’s when she’s not showing Chrissie’s vulnerability as a grieving mother trying to come to terms with losing another daughter.
While the movie could have been much better and more focused, I found myself mostly content with the film. The best way I can describe it is that it’s a pleasant movie. If nothing else, it’s not Thor: Love and Thunder.
