Critics Bash Taika Waititi’s ‘Klara and the Sun’ as ‘Awful,’ Even ‘Wretched’
The adaptation is criticized for cloying humor and weak emotion as Klara tries to heal Josie, a chronically ill teen, with help from a friend and a scarecrow.
- On October 23, Taika Waititi's adaptation of Klara and the Sun opens in theaters, with critics calling it "fatally twee" and the "worst screen adaptation" of Kazuo Ishiguro's acclaimed novel.
- The story follows Klara, a solar-powered Artificial Friend purchased for Josie, a teenager among the "lifted," young people who have undergone a medical procedure to improve their life prospects.
- Waititi's direction, known for broad comedy, feels misplaced; critics describe the film as "terribly cloying" with attempts at tenderness that feel clumsy rather than subtle.
- Amy Adams portrays Josie's mother, Chrissie, in a performance critics found inconsistent, while the chemistry between Ortega and Mia Tharia proves insufficient to save the film from feeling hollow.
- Reviewers contrast the adaptation with Kogonada's After Yang, suggesting Waititi's film lacks the delicate touch required to explore Ishiguro's themes of love, loss, and human complexity.
13 Articles
13 Articles
Klara And The Sun review — 'wildly inconsistent'
It’s a strange time to make a film about a likeable robot who dreams of a relationship with a human owner, because the last thing most people want to hear about now is artificial intelligence. But this odd little story, taken from a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, has more to say about humanity than AI. If little of Taika Waititi’s film adaptation feels entirely original, there’s real charm in the quest of Jenna Ortega’s Klara to understand what makes …
‘Klara and the Sun’ Review: Jenna Ortega Plays a Manic Pixie Android in Taika Waititi’s Confoundingly Awful Kazuo Ishiguro Adaptation
Jenna Ortega stars in Taika Waititi's confoundingly awful dystopian fable 'Klara and the Sun,' adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro's novel. Review.
‘Klara And The Sun’ Review: Taika Waititi’s Heavy-Handed Adaptation Mistakes Sentimentality For Emotional Depth
There’s a beautiful, heartbreaking film somewhere inside “Klara And The Sun,” Kazuo Ishiguro’s melancholy science-fiction fairy tale about love, loss, mortality, and the contradictions that make us human. It should unfold like a twinkling lullaby, a sun-dappled hug, an intimate examination of the quiet ways grief devastates us. But Taika Waititi, a filmmaker whose instincts seem fundamentally incompatible with the material, squanders that delica…
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