Critical popcorn

I can’t recall a time where I have been so completely out of step with the prevailing opinion as I am with Klara And The Sun. No sooner had Taika Watiti’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s excellent novel premiered at the London Film Festival than critics began tearing it to shreds, with one-star reviews from some of the country’s biggest outlets, including The Guardian, The Sun and The Times.

My relationship with Watiti is complicated. I loved his earlier, more personal films, but have been cooler on his work since entering the MCU. As a performer he is also at serious risk of overexposure, and his gurning turns in the likes of Free Guy wearing thin, alongside some controversial personal outings make him a bit of an irritant, but there’s no doubt that he is a talented filmmaker – JoJo Rabbit, Hunt For The Wilderpeople and Boy all demonstrate his uncanny knack for finding humour in serious subject matter. That makes him an intriguing choice to adapt Ishiguro, whose science-fiction stories are less interested in futuristic spectacle than in what technology reveals about human nature

This rather lengthy introduction is all to say that I quite liked Klara and The Sun. It’s not perfect, and certainly not up there with Watiti’s best work, but the amount of vitriol and hostility that has been sent his way has been excessive to say the least.

The story is interesting but not especially original. It concerns the irrepressibly cheerful Klara (Jenna Ortega), an old model android, or “Artificial Friend,” who is purchased by Josie (Mia Tharia), a teenage girl who has been genetically enhanced through a process known as being “lifted.” As Klara tries to understand the world and her place in Josie’s life, her unwavering faith in the sun becomes a source of hope, even as the circumstances surrounding her new family grow increasingly troubling.

Critics have honed in on the way Watiti dilutes the innate sadness and drama of the novel through comedy, but to me at least this is something that has always been present in his films, from Eagle Vs Shark to JoJo Rabbit. Even the much derided Thor: Love & Thunder had emotional scenes, and for me these were among the only ones that worked! Klara And The Sun is by it’s very nature a high concept story, so the heightened tone largely feels appropriate giving the story a distinctive personality.

On the plus side, the film looks incredible. As opposed to the grimy, bleak visions of the future we’re used to, Watiti’s world is bright and vibrant, and the cinematography exaggerates the actors features, making everything seem vaguely artificial in a way that recalls Bong Joon-ho – specifically Mickey 17. The script is also intermittently genuinely funny; Klara’s response after someone attempts to drown her is particularly funny, as is Adams’ line delivery of “you aren’t the droid we’re looking for!”

Ortega gives a winning performance as the wide-eyed, offbeat android, and makes her both lovably child-like and distinctly alien in her understanding of everyday human experiences. She also uses her physicality brilliantly – the scene of her experiencing stairs for the first time is a brilliant piece of physical comedy, as is her exaggerated, careful way of stepping around the wheat fields, something she doesn’t trust. Most importantly, the devotion she shows towards Josie has such an infectious sincerity that it makes her an endlessly loveable character

Tharia is equally impressive as Josie, giving her a fragility and an inner steeliness that makes her a compelling character, and their scenes together provide the film’s most affecting moments. There’s a natural warmth to their developing friendship, as Josie introduces Klara to the world while Klara tries desperately to remain useful and essential to her owner. Their relationship feels more emotionally convincing than the film’s grander ideas, and to be honest the film would have benefitted from abandoning the more fanciful aspects of the ending, and focused more on the ups and downs of their friendship.

All the other performances are heightened to the extent that they feel like cartoons rather than real people. Natasha Lyonne really leans into her Poker Face eccentricities, but there is an added sense of melancholy to her performance that’s never satisfyingly developed. Amy Adams is deliberately cold as Josie’s business mother. She evidently despises Klara, and her actions are so counter-intuitive it is a little frustrating. The way she simultaneously doesn’t want Klara around her daughter and also berates her constantly for not protecting her is incredibly irritating. A late development in their relationship is disturbing and intriguing, and suggests a whole new avenue for the film to go down, but the more sinister implications remain largely unexplored.

This does lead to the crucial problem with the film – there are darker aspects to the plot, but Watiti seems reluctant to really dig into there. Klara is so positive, always starting her day with a mantra to the sun, but her faith is rarely tested in a way that generates any kind of suspense, something that is exacerbated by Watiti’s unwillingness to really dig into the more sinister implications of the story. The ending seems like it’s going to be a corrective for this, but ultimately just reinforces her impression that all she needs to do is pray to the sun and it will always work out ok. The ending takes a fanciful, sentimental turn that feels contrived after the darker conclusion I had anticipated. It’s not a satisfying ending, but at least the emotions are real.

It’s not a perfect film by any means, but for all it’s flaws, I still found a lot to enjoy in Klara and the Sun. It’s a little twee, the ending is muddled, and it lacks the grounded edge of Waititi’s best work, but writing it off as a disaster seems reductive and harsh. This isn’t Waititi at his best, but there’s enough warmth, curiosity, and poignancy here to make the film worth watching.

Klara And The Sun is in cinemas from 23 October