"Klara and the Sun" Laughs When It Should Think

While I appreciate the quirky sense of humor that Taika Waititi brings to the world, this may have been a moment when he should have slowed down and thought about whether he was being clever or being distracting. When it was announced that he would adapt Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel Klara and the Sun, I was hopeful that this would be a new phase in his career. His Hollywood films have been defined by quirky, humorous stories that typically have a lot of heart to them. When he directed Jojo Rabbit, he took a serious (but unremarkable) book and turned it into one of the best films of the year. It wasn’t a bad book, mind you, but let’s just say… well, Waititi made the conventional story far more interesting. Not since Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful had a movie touching on the Holocaust managed to introduce humor into such a sensitive topic.

Having read Klara and the Sun, I was excited to hear Waititi would be directing it, as I was hopeful this would be his next great film. Sure, the novel wasn’t exactly a riot in the sense Catch-22 was, but there was room for him to implement his unique sense of humor while giving him a much meatier dystopian future to play with. Sadly, it turns out Waititi’s sense of humor may have gotten in the way of his adaptation, as Klara and the Sun ends up being a mess of a film: eccentric in all the wrong ways in the first half, confusing in the second; this is a marriage of oil and frozen yogurt witnessed in real time. Normally, I’m hesitant about bringing up source material in a film review. Since movies and books are different mediums, comparisons are typically unfair.

I think I bring it up this time because this is a unique case of Waititi being handed a good thing and letting his own personality obfuscate what it was he had. When trying to figure out where things went wrong, I suspect hiring Jenna Ortega to play Klara may have been where things were derailed a little. Ortega is a good actress and one of the most promising young talents working in Hollywood today, but she is also known for being a quirky actress at heart. Her dance scene from the Netflix series Wednesday made her an overnight star, and she brims with youthful energy and playfulness whenever she is being interviewed on talk shows and publicity events. She can be a serious actor, but I wonder if Waititi spent time with her and decided to take advantage of her quirky personality?

Ortega’s early scenes have her acting so over-the-top, it seemed like Waititi was trying hard to create a new meme out of her rather than a compelling performance. This may explain all of these weird acting choices early in the film, where Klara crawls on her belly going up the stairs, does strange sideflips while running through wheat fields, and tilts her head in confusion more often than a pug. Truthfully, when the mother of the house (Amy Adams) gets annoyed with the robot, it's hard not to sympathize with her. Oh, yeah, I forgot: Klara is an android who was built to be a human companion, but is at risk of being destroyed when newer models come on the market (with Bluetooth installed). Thankfully, a young girl named Josie (Mia Tharia) falls in love with her and chooses her to be her friend.

This is where the movie becomes less interesting, as the two play pranks, do odd things, and generally just act like teenagers. The household finds Klara a bit on the irritating side, and a dinner party that is supposed to introduce Josie to new friends is frustrating in all the wrong ways. Yes, that part is in the novel, but when you have a cast of characters overacting to try and make the dialogue more theatrical when understated acting would make the dialogue land harder, you can’t help but squirm in your seat a little. When the second half of the film comes around and we discover Klara’s true reason for being purchased, the film becomes very serious and somber, as if a light was just turned off.

While I would be lying if I pretended this half wasn’t considerably more interesting, it comes so late in the game that I found I no longer cared. How could I? First I was watching a bad comedy only for it to turn into a mediocre drama. Ultimately, Klara and the Sun feels like a wasted opportunity for Waititi to grow as a filmmaker, and I hope he takes a long, hard look at the result and learns that he doesn’t need to be quirky just for the sake of being quirky. Yes, it worked with Jojo Rabbit, but that was based on a novel that was largely forgettable. Here, he was adapting an award-winning novel that people loved, so he needed to be more careful. And I suppose the reason I keep bringing the novel up is because it’s one thing to make a bad movie; it just adds salt to the wound knowing it was based on a good book.