Critics Pan Waititi's Klara and the Sun as Calamitous — SkimNews
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- Taika Waititi directed the film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's 2021 novel 'Klara and the Sun,' with Ishiguro taking an executive producer credit
- Jenna Ortega stars as Klara, a solar-powered android (called an 'artificial friend'), alongside Amy Adams as her mother, Natasha Lyonne as a store manager, and Mia Tharia as the teen who buys her
- Michael Giacchino composed the score and Waititi co-wrote the screenplay with Dahvi Waller, whose first big-screen credit this is
- The film premiered in London after being conspicuously absent from September's season-launching festivals and is set to open in theaters on October 23
- The review characterizes the project as a 'hopeless mismatch,' arguing Waititi's 'cutesy, kooky' comedic style fights the 'stoic sadness' of Ishiguro's storytelling at every turn
- The critique also faults the film for blundering into existential themes of artificial life that 'Ex Machina,' 'Marjorie Prime,' 'Her,' and 'Robot Dreams' have already probed with more nuance
Why it matters: A prestige adaptation of a Nobel laureate's novel, directed by an Oscar winner and led by a buzzy young star, has been declared artistically inert by Variety ahead of its October 23 release. The review argues Waititi's signature whimsy is structurally incompatible with Ishiguro's melancholic interiority, which could cap the film's box office and sideline it from awards-season conversation.
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