Taika Waititi's 'Klara and the Sun' Opens to Harsh Reviews Despite Strong Cast

Taika Waititi's 'Klara and the Sun' carries the weight of a Nobel laureate's source material, a cast headlined by Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams, and reviews that range from disappointed to withering.

The film adapts Kazuo Ishiguro's novel about Klara, a solar-powered android sold as an 'Artificial Friend' to a lonely, ailing 14-year-old genius named Josie (Mia Tharia). Ortega plays Klara; Adams plays Josie's uptight mother; Natasha Lyonne appears as an AF salesperson. The story unfolds in a near-future Midwest where a third world war has wiped out the internet, families can purchase humanoid AF companions for their children, and Klara — an older, more rudimentary solar-powered model — comes to worship the sun as a god.

Taika Waititi detonates an explosion of postmodern quirkiness and ironic dorkiness in this unbearably mannered, unspeakably acted film. It’s a slice of sentimental whimsy-futurism and non-satire, adapted by Waititi from the Kazuo Ishiguro novel, which winds up saying nothing substantial or meaningful (or funny) about artificial intelligence, love or grief.— Reviewer

The Guardian's review places the film closer to Waititi's divisive 'Jojo Rabbit' than to the crowd-pleasing energy of 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople' or 'Thor: Ragnarok,' describing it as 'misjudged and self-admiring.' Reviews have compared it unfavorably to Waititi's earlier work. The Hollywood Reporter, while noting Ortega's committed performance and the production's visual atmosphere, still counted the film among the year's more prominent misfires.

The comparison to 'Jojo Rabbit' runs through multiple reviews. That film — Waititi's 'anti-hate satire' about a Hitler Youth member's awakening, adapted from Christine Leunens's novel — won him an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and grossed nearly $100 million, despite widespread criticism of its artistic choices. Critics suggest 'Klara and the Sun' repeats the same gamble: treating a solemnly complex, questioning novel as a cockeyed, child's-eye comedy — but this time without the commercial or awards payoff.

The Guardian's review takes particular aim at the film's internal logic, noting that the AF robots are said to run on Bluetooth in their newer models rather than solar power — a detail the review questions — and that Klara's PEC-9 fluid, described in the film as 'highly flammable,' is presented as an incidental character detail rather than a meaningful plot point. The post-World War Three setting, meanwhile, is described as looking 'in pretty good shape' apart from the absence of the internet.

The question of how to dramatize AI interiority and robot emotion has tripped up other filmmakers recently. The Guardian's review cites Hirokazu Kore-eda's 'Sheep in the Box,' about robot child replacements, as a recent comparable stumble, while pointing to Kogonada's 'After Yang' — also about an AI child robot — as a more persuasive treatment of the same territory.

As of opening, critical reception leans negative, though it remains divided — with Ortega's performance and the film's visual atmosphere among the few elements drawing consistent, if qualified, praise.

Why it matters — A high-profile adaptation of a Booker Prize-winning author's novel, with a major cast and an Oscar-winning director, 'Klara and the Sun' arrives as a test of whether Waititi's comedic instincts can carry serious literary material — and early reviews suggest they cannot.

Reported by variety.com, hollywoodreporter.com, theguardian.com