REVIEW. Ignore the Critics! KLARA AND THE SUN Shines Bright.
I almost got a refund for my tickets.
After seeing the trailer for Klara and the Sun several weeks ago, I knew I wanted to see it. But then the critics weighed in, and they were vicious, calling Taika Waititi's take on Nobel Laureate Kazuo Ishiguro's 2021 novel of the same name everything from "calamitous" to a "cinematic mess." Theaters began pulling the film from their schedules, so opportunities to see it narrowed. Nonetheless, I persisted in finding a matinee that fit my schedule.
I must admit, though, that my expectations about the movie were quickly fading. Even my husband inquired as to why I seemed so intent on seeing a movie so universally panned. I gently reminded him of a reverse situation from several years back, when NYTimes critic A.O. Scott enthusiastically recommended Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, a film so overblown and pretentious that it almost ("almost" being the key qualifier) shook my husband's unflinching trust in the newspaper's movie recommendations.
Those of you who know me beyond this blog will understand that all those negative reviews about Klara only intensified my interest in seeing it. What was so bad about this movie to say it was unwatchable? Why the sharpened knives toward Waititi, a highly respected, Oscar-winning, writer/director? Granted, Waititi's movies are an acquired taste for some. His Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for 2019's Jojo Rabbit divided critics, some of whom deemed the story about a German boy whose imaginary friend is none other than Adolf Hitler silly and even offensive, accusing Waititi of minimizing the the horrors of the Holocaust, with one even suggesting that Waititi's Oscar win was really a victory for fascism.
Shades of criticism like those against Roberto Benigni's 1999 film, Life is Beautiful, the tale of a father/son imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp, where the father uses games to distract his son from the atrocities happening around them? Maybe. Even Steven Spielberg looked upon Benigni's film with disdain, and snidely dismissing the Italian writer/director/actor for disrespecting the Holocaust by using humor in his story. Apparently, Spielberg isn't familiar with Charlie Chaplin's The Kid. I'll refrain from a diatribe here, but I remain a firm believer that appropriately placed humor can be a more powerful tool expressing a serious issue than straight-on drama.
But I digress. I kept wondering what was it about Waititi's new film that was so awful? So I starting searching the internet for "positive" reviews about Klara and the Sun and found one, which didn't say much except that Jenna Ortega was luminous (true) in the title role and that the cinematography was spectacular (spot on). Hmm.
Then I thought, what about Ishiguro? Was he involved in the adaptation? If so, what was his take on the movie? If not, was his negativity driving the critical consensus that Waititi's film completely ignored the novel's key theme about what it means to be human?
After some more searching, I found a recent interview in which Ishiguro (who served as one of the movie's executive producers) described his novel as "bleak," but then went on to say that he did not want the movie version to merely copy the book. Instead, he intentionally declined to write the screenplay and specifically sought Waititi to be the creative force behind the cinematic interpretation, saying that someone else should now interpret his story, to allow its core themes to evolve into something new.
Interesting, since most critics denounced the movie's "sunny" view of serious issues. Did the critics not know about Ishiguro's wish? Many of them complained the movie was anything but serious, with Rotten Tomatoes summarizing its critique of Waititi as "flattening the nuanced ideas of its acclaimed source material with a tonally broad approach." Further, David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter, bemoaned, "Not only does Waititi's film have nothing to say about the evolving relationship between humans and AI, it fails even in the more pedestrian territory of friendship, love, grief and that tired old thematic staple of reminding us to cherish every moment while we can. The movie is fatally twee..."
Fatally twee? For me, that was the descriptor that went too far, the one that suggested critics have become so literal of late that they might have failed to understand nuance, subtlety, and satire.
Bingo! And I was off.
Set in a post-World War III dystopian future where the internet no longer exists because humans failed to understand how to use it effectively, Klara and the Sun is the story of a solar-powered Artificial Friend (AF), named Klara (Jenna Ortega), whose model is being discontinued because the robots became too empathetic toward humans.
Klara lives in an Artificial Friends store with other old AF's hoping to find new owners. When the Store Manager (Natasha Lyonne, playing what appears to be some "Weird Barbie" version of herself), gives her one last chance to secure a new home, Klara connects with a teenager named Josie (Mia Tharia) who, despite objections from her controlling mother Chrissie (Amy Adams), insists Klara be adopted as her new best friend.
Chrissie and Josie, along with creepy housekeeper Melania (Rachel House) live in an optulent, remotely located house near a wheat farm, underscoring Ishiguro's sense of human isolation in a dying world. We learn quickly that Josie is "lifted," meaning that she underwent an intelligence-enhancing genetic alteration, that has left her as lonely as the environment in which she lives. Josie is also gravely ill, the unintentional consequence (perhaps) of being lifted, and one clue into the tense relationship she maintains with Chrissie.
Into all of this walks Klara, a kind of computerized Tabula Rasa, whose memories are formed by the humans with whom she is in contact. She is thus somewhat childlike: naive, but intelligent and keenly observant. We see the world through her eyes, which are constantly "calibrating" to her new surroundings. Cinematographer Mike Berlucci uses some clever lens-adjusting techniques as Klara continuously puts her world into focus.
As she bonds with Josie, Klara absorbs more information about humans, but remains convinced that the Sun which powers her, is the kind of deity who can resolve all problems, including illness and despair. Her regular conversations with the Sun are genuine and heartfelt, punctuated by moments of levity and followed by deepening levels of understanding toward human nature.
There are platitudes, for sure, but they are written into the script as a kind of wry awareness about what it means to be human: that perfection is not only unattainable, but probably undesirable; that real love involves joy and pain, but also selflessness and sacrifice. Waititi and co-writer Dahvi Waller keep the dialogue understated, but sharp, moving some complex themes along without reducing them to blithering nonsense. Critics who found the humor distracting were not paying attention: the jokes - the verbal and the physical ones - are so carefully integrated into the script and the set design that it would be impossible to separate them and maintain a cohesive narrative.
Waititi moves effortlessly from one meticulously crafted set to another, using his intricately designed locations as characters in the story, and evoking Wes Anderson's signature kodachrome idiosyncracies. Whether making her way through a wheat field or learning to navigate a stairway, Klara is gathering information, but also gaining experience and, ultimately, wisdom. I was reminded of the question asked of Victor in last year's Frankenstein about creating life from inantimate materials: Where is their soul? As in Guillermo del Toro's world of misfits, his Creature has more soul than any of the humans he encounters. Ditto here with Klara.
On the subject of Klara, Jenna Ortega is brilliant in her portrayal of a robot searching for human connection. Every move is completely in sync with the character and the situation. This is a role that could easily fall into caricature and Ortega finds just the right balance between cyborg and human, weaving them together as she finds a poignant awarness of the world around her.
For the first half of this film, I marveled at the intricate sets (which resemble Tokyo in close-up and Chicago in silhouette), the kinetic cinematography, and the fast-paced dialogue. During the second half, which brings in new plot twists and character development, I couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong with this film? Why am I enjoying it? Did I miss something?"
I could only conclude that it was the critics who missed something: that they mistook Waititi's gentle take on Klara's perspective as hamfisted and sentimental, that they picked apart individual jokes and asides rather than view the Waititi/Waller script as a whole within the context of how AI is changing humanity's molecules. Mostly though, as with another recent release, The Social Reckoning - also about AI and also receiving tepid reviews - I couldn't help but wonder if, in this increasingly polarized world, there isn't behind-the-scenes pressure on filmmakers to produce movies that blunt our senses rather than raise questions about who we are and how we journey into an uncertain future.
The tear rolling down my cheek as the credits for Klara and the Sun rolled was as much for the story's gentle hope about the power of love and friendship as it was about my own sadness that, as a collective, we are still so very far from being human. Waititi's use of light juxtaposed against Klara's conversations with the Sun, sometimes to overwhelming effect, felt symbolic of Helios and Apollo and their mythical associations with knowledge, clarity and healing - all of which fit into the movie's - and Ishiguro's - narrative. It's a darkly tinged, beautifully told, richly visual tale about humanity. So how did the critics ignore all this good stuff? I dunno. But I keep thinking about Spike Lee's quip after Green Book won the Best Picture Oscar in 2019: "Sometimes the Ref gets its wrong." So true. And so it goes sometimes with movie critics. But isn't Spike Lee now schilling for Meta? Hmm. Maybe the Ref has an ulterior motive.
*******
Klara and the Sun is rated PG-13 for some intense sci-fi/dystopian images and mature themes. Since its theatrical release has been cut short, it may be difficult to see in a theater, so look for it to hit streaming platforms soon, beginning with Netflix.
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