The Movie: Klara and the Sun
The Director: Taika Waititi
The Cast: Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Mia Tharia, Aran Murphy, Steve Buscemi, Natasha Lyonne
The Story: A robot girl designed to prevent loneliness tries to save a heartbroken family of humans.
The Rating: 8 / 10
The Review:
This film is weird. And I mean that in a very good way. I never read the book, but I imagine it's just as cute and quirky as Taika Waititi's cinematic adaptation has turned out to be. The story is equal parts science fiction, fantasy, family drama, and a coming of age story like you've never seen before. I love how we get to see the world from Klara's perspective as she believes in love and that the sun is a higher being that provides health and nourishment to everything and everyone.
The whole story is such a beautiful lesson on what humanity could and should be and why the heck does it take a robot for us to realize that. It really helps that the robot Klara is played by Jenna Ortega who is absolutely fantastic in this movie and I can't imagine anyone else ever playing this character. The quirkiness and cuteness, and earnestness all comes across in such a perfectly and naturally robotic way, if that makes sense. She plays the character in such a pure, loving, and honest way, it would be easy to perceive Klara as naive but I think it's more that she hasn't been subjected to a lot of the cultural and societal programming that make us normal human folk so jaded and cynical.
It's been a while since I've been truly happy while watching a movie directed by Taika Waititi and that's kind of a shame because he's an extremely creative filmmaker, I just think he can get a little lost in his own head sometimes. It seems like adapting a well loved and clearly established novel kept him on the right path towards making a movie that has just the right amount of comedy and quirkiness to go along with all the heart and emotion. I also have to say that the movie looks absolutely fantastic which is also a testament to Waititi's skills as a director as well as cinematographer Mike Berlucchi. Everything is so lush and colorful and big and bold, it's definitely a movie you really want to see on a big theater screen.
I feel like this movie will inspire people to read Kazuo Ishiguro's book which would be a really cool thing since, from what I understand, it's pretty fantastic also. Along with the quirkiness and whimsey, there's also a lot of layers and depth to the story that go way beyond the cute robot stuff on the surface, that's just there to bring you in. Don't get me wrong, the story never feels preachy but ther'e a ton of commentary and just a lot of thought provoking themes that cover where we are as a society and where we may be headed if we're not careful. There's some discussion of AI as far as how the robots are designed but not in the context of all the real world discussions we're having these days.
Overall, this is just a really fun and thoroughly entertaining bit of heartwarming cinema and I'm happy to say that we're also getting to see Jenna Ortega take another step forward in her journey through Hollywood stardom. She's proving more and more that she can lead the way in a major production like this and this performance should continue to cement her as a bankable A-list performer. Thank you for reading this review, please be kind to your family, your friends, and to your robot companion. Listen to them. Pay attention to them. Don't be afraid to communicate with them. You never know what's going on inside someone's jumbled up bundle of wires and transistors and internal organs.
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