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 humans tick, and where she belongs in the world.
We first meet Klara in the shop where she eagerly awaits purchase, petitioning the sun she glimpses each morning that this will be the day she finds her human owner. After watching the world through a window to try to understand love, life and death, she finally finds a home with Josie (Mia Tharia) and her mum Chrissie (Amy Adams). But there Klara learns about grief, and finds that her prayers to the sun can’t solve every problem.
Waititi just about keeps the story whimsical rather than twee...
Josie’s little family is shaped by grief, which strangely seems to be a near-constant in stories about humanity’s theoretical relationship with sentient robots. From Isaac Asimov’s The Bicentennial Man to Steven Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence or Kogonada’s After Yang, the ability of artificial humans to replace those we’ve lost, or offer true human companionship, seems to be a constant. That melancholy streak also reflects Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, and the questions about robotic service and loyalty even recall his earlier The Remains Of The Day, but Klara’s naivety and innocence make this more of a fairy tale than either. Waititi’s setting — a beautiful house surrounded by ripe cornfields — adds to the impression that we’re in some kind of Oz, even if occasional scenes in a post-World War III big city suggest more of a dystopian Blade Runner reality existing just past the horizon.
Waititi, who’s at his strongest with stories about outsiders — such as Hunt For The Wilderpeople, Boy and Thor: Ragnarok — just about keeps the story whimsical rather than twee as Klara tries to make Josie and her mother happy, helped by Ortega’s wide-eyed wonder and endless determination. But otherwise the tone is uneven and lumpy. There’s broad comedy in scenes with Josie’s monstrous classmates and much gentler laughs in Klara’s attempts to get to grips with human behaviour; the quiet tragedy in Chrissie’s attempts to manage her grief become monstrous in the way she asks Klara to help her. And just as you’re lulled into accepting this as a gentle fable about the things we sacrifice for those we love, there’s a moment of disturbing violence. It’s as if all the parts of this story are interesting in their own right, but none of them quite fit together as they should.