With each new Taika Waititi movie, I feel like an old person telling young cinephiles he used to be a good writer/director. Before some kid goes, “Take your meds, grandpa,” I’ll scream, “HUNT FOR THE WILDERPEOPLE!” Regrettably, it’s all for naught, for there’s a ghost in Waititi’s shell. An obnoxious one that now peddles quirk-fueled movies that keep getting worse with each effort, or lack thereof. In his latest film, Klara and the Sun, he shares co-writing credit with Dahvi Waller, and his incessant need to (to paraphrase Shawn Levy) “riff on a level that’s freaking sublime” drains Klara of its rich potential, which can be found in its source material — a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. Faithful in its plotting, but obnoxious and saccharine to the point of numbness, you feel as roboticized as its lead’s programming.
MPA Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, some violence, and strong language.)
Runtime: 1 Hour and 56 Minutes (116 minutes)
Language: English
Production Companies: 3000 Pictures, Spyglass Media Group
Distributor: Sony Pictures Releasing
Director: Taika Waititi
Screenwriters: Taika Waititi, Dahvi Waller
Cast: Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Mia Tharia, Natasha Lyonne, Steve Buscemi, Simon Baker, Aran Murphy, Rachel House
U.S Release Date: October 23, 2026
The film is set in a post-apocalyptic future after WWIII, leaving people without the internet, but tech evolved, and android humanoids can be purchased for companionship. Klara (Jenna Ortega) is a perky, golly-gee humanoid in a long line of “Artificial Friends” — or AFs, haha VERY FUNNY! — machines living in a department store in a Blade Runner-esque shopping district. Their store manager (Natasha Lyonne) cares for her outmoded droids, all waiting to be purchased and taken home by a human.
One day, while on window duty, a lonesome Josie (Mia Tharia) approaches Klara, and they instantly click. To her interior designer mother Chrissy’s (Amy Adams) reluctance, she purchases Klara, hoping she can watch and tend to her, as both faced the tragic loss of Josie’s sister and dad. In addition, Josie is ailing after being struck by seizures following her “lifted” — a program rich parents do with their kids where they alter their DNA to turn them into prodigies. While living in their lavish house on their farmland, Klara struggles. She can’t go up the stairs, the housemaid Melania (Rachel House) is mean to her, and Chrissy is snooty towards her.
Klara and the Sun has a beautiful world ruined by Waititi’s worst instincts.
Jenna Ortega stars in Klara and the Sun. Copyright © 2026 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
If there’s anything going for Klara and the Sun, it’s Ra Vincent’s production design. He collaborated with Waititi on most of his work since What We Do in the Shadows. Chrissy and Josie’s sunkissed, futuristic cropland and the house’s postmodern decor are genuinely beautiful.
Mia Tharia and Jenna Ortega try their damnedest to give the lifeless script a real pulse, for they share decent chemistry. Aran Murphy also does a great job portraying Rick, Josie’s boyfriend, with robotic proficiency.
But screw that. You’re watching Taika Waititi regress in real time, to the point that his faint image is among the large crops, filling each scene with jaunty, quirky, painfully unfunny attempts at humor. Like Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning and Chris Rock’s Misty Green, Klara is Waititi giving in to his worst instincts, diluting whatever richness its source bears with his trademark actions to an irritating degree. Waititi’s deafening voice is in every character, with each person speaking in quippy, snide remarks or awkward jokes. Since Dahvi Waller co-wrote the film, it’s like watching a comedy duo bomb in real time. Every attempt at a genuine emotional beat is undercut with a bad joke.
Ortega tries to power through the fluff, but Klara’s consistently one-note, quirked-up demeanor never strikes emotional weight. The side characters are all penned with either an over-the-top, aggressively mean spirit or they’re an overly eccentric person. There’s no in-between! The core dynamic meant to carry Josie and Klara is condensed into montages, rather than the script giving them genuine conversations that further their found-family relationship.
Klara and the Sun is a real-boy story from a filmmaker who’s lost his humanity.
Mia Tharia and Jenna Ortega star in Klara and the Sun. Copyright © 2026 CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The flat characterizations and little progression lead to cast members churning out poor performances. It pains to write “Amy Adams is bad here,” but the material leaves her high and dry as the script doesn’t give Chrissy a natural relationship with Klara or even Josie. Adams looks incredibly uncomfortable, lost in her line delivery, and phoning it in. Somehow Adams has more of a forceful presence in Hillbilly Elegy than here, and I’d argue a better character than Chrissy, who is essentially a villain with no qualities that the script redeems. Even longtime collaborator Rachel House, who is too good for Waititi, winds up with the short end of the stick.
As Klara’s story drifted into numerous unfocused, bizarre, and underwhelming directions, I kept thinking how Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara would’ve shone under After Yang director Kogonada. Movies about the interplay between artificial intelligence and grief are his specialty, with Yang being among the decade’s finest sci-fi dramas. It allowed audiences to live within a fractured family’s plight, and their loving companion was full of character. I also thought about how I judged Hirokazu Kore-eda’s thematically similar yet ill-conceived Sheep in the Box too harshly. While I was frustrated with that film, as heartbreaking as it was to dislike it, I actually felt something, which is better than feeling absolutely nothing.
If Klara and the Sun’s intention was to make me feel as hollow as the titular android, then it succeeded. Otherwise, it’s depressing to see Waititi diminishing himself into complete artifice. We’ve seen this Oscar winner arrive at his most robotic self — his career low — hoping he will retreat to his roots. He needs to get back to the filmmaker who once made the reel Boy. Yeah, it’s a stretch to make a “real boy” joke because his first movie was called Boy, but nevertheless, I miss when Taika movies had some Weightiti to them.
