London, 16 October 2026 – Klara and the Sun, Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel, stars Jenna Ortega as Klara, an artificial companion bought for a teenage girl in a future shaped by artificial intelligence and social division. The film, which premiered at the BFI London Film Festival, is set for wider release later this month.
For Asian audiences, the film arrives at a moment when artificial intelligence has moved from speculative fiction into daily life and business. Its themes, companionship, automation, inequality and the emotional limits of technology, are increasingly relevant across a region where governments and companies are investing heavily in AI adoption.
A Familiar Story With a Lighter Touch
The story follows Klara, an outdated B1 model of an “Artificial Friend”, who waits in a shop until she is chosen by Josie, played by Mia Tharia.
Josie lives with her mother, Chrissie, played by Amy Adams, and is dealing with a serious illness in a society where technology has altered the way children are educated, socialised and even enhanced.
Klara enters the household as a companion, but gradually becomes something more. She watches the family closely, learns their fears and attachments, and develops an almost spiritual faith in the healing power of the sun.
That premise gives the film room to explore some of Ishiguro’s central questions: what makes human relationships meaningful, whether love can be replicated, and how much emotional value people are willing to assign to machines.
Waititi approaches those questions with a considerably warmer and more playful tone.
Ortega Brings Energy to Klara
Ortega plays Klara with deliberate innocence and curiosity.
Rather than treating the character as a cold machine slowly discovering emotion, the performance leans into openness and optimism from the beginning.
That choice makes Klara easy to engage with, but it also changes the emotional texture of the story.
Ishiguro’s novel is restrained and often unsettling. The film is more openly sentimental, with humour and emotional cues pushed closer to the surface.
That accessibility may appeal to audiences unfamiliar with the novel, although it also softens some of the ambiguity that made the original story distinctive.
Strong Cast, Uneven Tone
Amy Adams brings weight to Chrissie, a mother whose decisions are shaped by grief, fear and the possibility of losing her daughter.
Mia Tharia gives Josie vulnerability without making her passive, while Aran Murphy appears as Rick, Josie’s childhood friend.
The supporting cast also includes Natasha Lyonne and Steve Buscemi, adding familiar screen presence to a story that remains centred on Klara and Josie.
The difficulty is tonal.
The film moves between dystopian science fiction, family drama, comedy and fable. Some of those elements work well together, but others compete for attention.
Its brighter visual and emotional style can make the darker ideas surrounding social inequality and technological dependence feel less threatening than they might otherwise.
AI Is the Setting, Not the Villain
One of the film’s more interesting choices is that artificial intelligence is not presented simply as the threat.
Klara may be synthetic, but many of the more troubling decisions are made by humans.
The world around her has already accepted technology as part of everyday life, including artificial companions designed to address loneliness.
That makes the film less about machines replacing people and more about what people choose to ask machines to do for them.
The distinction is important.
Klara and the Sun is not primarily warning that AI will become too human. It is more interested in whether humans risk becoming less attentive to one another when technology offers an easier substitute for connection.
The Ledger Asia Insights
Klara and the Sun arrives at an unusually relevant moment for a story originally published in 2021.
The commercial AI boom has made artificial companions, conversational systems and emotionally responsive software far less abstract than they were only a few years ago.
For technology companies, the next phase of AI development is increasingly moving beyond productivity tools towards systems designed to interact with people in more personal ways.
That raises questions that are not purely technical.
If AI systems become more convincing as companions, tutors or caregivers, companies and regulators will need to consider how users form emotional dependence on them, what responsibilities developers have towards vulnerable users, and where commercial incentives intersect with human relationships.
The film does not offer a rigorous examination of those issues, and its sentimental tone sometimes reduces the complexity of Ishiguro’s original ideas.
But its central question remains relevant: if technology becomes better at imitating care, society will still need to decide what genuine human connection is worth.
That question gives Klara and the Sun more significance than its gentle presentation might initially suggest.
