By Mark Fields
Domestic Drama with Android Has Fatal Operating Error
Klara, the Artificial Friend or AF, is not quite right. Similarly, Klara and the Sun, the film for which Klara (Jenna Ortega) is the central character, is also not quite right. Although, I’m pretty sure it’s not the fault of Ortega in the lead role. No, the tonal failure of Klara and the Sun can likely be laid at the feet of Taika Waititi in his dual role of director and screenwriter; his broader comic sensibilities as witnessed in JoJo Rabbit and Thor: Ragnarok do not match well with this delicate, whimsical fairy tale.
Based on the well-regarded novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun tells the story of an android who reveres the Sun – whom she views as a deity because it provides her solar power. She asks the Sun to intervene in the tenuous life of her human assignment, Josie (Mia Tharia), who is suffering from a mysterious but fatal illness. Josie’s mother Chrissy (Amy Adams) has another, more diabolical solution to Josie’s situation, and Klara must face down Chrissy and several other formidable obstacles in her quest to save Josie.
Novelist Ishiguro, a Nobel Prize-winning British novelist of Japanese ancestry, has created a number of wonderful fictional worlds (often veddy veddy British), several of which have translated well into modest but resonant films: The Remains of the Day, Never Let Me Go, and Living. A recurring theme in Ishiguro’s fiction is wounded humanity, and so it seems fitting for him to address that subject again in Klara and the Sun where both the human main character and the android one suffer deeply human wounds.
In the last decade, Waititi has demonstrated tremendous range and talent in his movie and TV storytelling, and his work is often bold and imaginative. But Waititi’s cinematic translation of this story just plays wrong. It’s too loud, too lurid, and too silly for the source material. Despite a game performance by Ortega as Klara, the movie grates rather than endears.
Official Trailer
