Klara and the Sun review
By Joel Humphries · Watched 10.22.26
★★★ 3 / 5
Spoiler-free review
Built around the gentle curiosity of an android waiting to be chosen, Klara and the Sun works best as a soft-focus sci‑fi about discovery rather than a drama driven by big conflicts. Jenna Ortega keeps it comfortably in her wheelhouse—earnest, a little ditzy by design, and believable as a well-meaning companion mapping human behavior. The family dynamics are mild, the stakes mostly limited to an illness and some sniping, but the film’s flirtation with AI-as-preservation adds a quietly intriguing wrinkle. Natasha Lyonne, as a wry store manager, pops just enough. Sweet, saccharine, and pleasant—ignore the critics and give it a shot.
Full review — contains spoilers
Jenna Ortega plays Klara, an android waiting in a store to be purchased as a companion for a child. She eventually goes home with a girl dealing with a mysterious illness, and much of the movie follows Klara as she tries to understand her new family and the world outside the shop. Her innocence, lack of experience, and occasional AI ditziness lead to the expected misunderstandings, but I found them sweet rather than irritating.
This is very saccharine, and there isn't much sustained conflict beyond the girl's illness and some mother-daughter sniping. The parenting leaves something to be desired, and the family has things going on that Klara doesn't fully understand. The film also gets into the possibility of using artificial intelligence to recreate a person, preserving their memories and behavior in something that might take their place after they're gone. It only explores that a little, but it was enough to interest me.
I'm a sucker for science fiction, so that probably helped. I liked watching Klara discover things, and Ortega's performance felt comfortably within her range. I believed her as this well-meaning artificial companion trying to figure out how people work.
Natasha Lyonne plays the manager of the store, and she's great. She's great practically every time she turns up in something. A little Natasha goes a long way for me, and I was happy to have her here.
I didn't have any major issues with this. It was sweet, gentle, and pleasant to watch. Ignore the critics and give it a shot.