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This week, in the second of two new episodes, Sophie and Rudi discuss “Klara and the Sun,” director Taika Waititi's film adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel of the same name.
The movie, which bombed at the box office, stars Jenna Ortega as a humanoid robot companion (an AF, or Artificial Friend) to a teenager, played by Mia Tharia, and her mom, played by Amy Adams. Natasha Lyonne, Steve Buscemi and Rachel House co-star.
After sharing their brief, spoiler-free thoughts on “Klara and the Sun,” which they both did not like (01:30), Sophie discusses her relationship to the book and its author, the Japanese-British Nobel Prize winner Ishiguro, who wrote one of her favorite books of all time, “Never Let Me Go” (03:48). Rudi then shares some background on the film, which was co-written by Waititi and Dahvi Waller (“Mad Men”) and sat on the shelf for nearly two years before it was released (07:44).
After a debate over the merits of Waititi as a filmmaker (12:27), they dive deep into the plot of “Klara and the Sun” the movie and its differences from Ishiguro’s novel (15:40). Their chief complaints are that the film completely changes the tone of Ishiguro’s book, favoring a twee, quirky vibe over the novel’s more thoughtful, meditative and dark interiority. They explain why they think the film was unsuccessful commercially and creatively, what they thought of Ortega and Adams’ performances and why the movie could get a second life when it eventually arrives on streaming (likely at Netflix).
Finally, Sophie makes her Sophie’s Choice pick for which she liked more: reading Ishiguro or watching “Klara and the Sun” (48:29). If you’ve read this far or listened this far into the episode, you can probably guess where she landed.
Next week, we’re discussing “Wildwood,” director Travis Knight and Laika Studios’ stop-motion animation adaptation of The Decemberists songwriter Colin Meloy’s first novel in his “Wildwood Chronicles” series. The hand-made film has a star-studded voice cast that includes Carey Mulligan, Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Richard E. Grant, Awkwafina, Amandla Stenberg, Tom Waits, Charlie Day, Blythe Danner, Arthur Knight, Angela Bassett and Mahershala Ali.
It Was A Book First is the podcast about new book-to-screen adaptations. Subscribe now to get new episodes delivered weekly on Wednesdays.
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Hosts and producers: Sophie Vershbow and Rudi Greenberg
Editing: Rudi Greenberg
Social media: Sophie Vershbow
Music: Cliff Blum and John Connelly; music production: Kevin Pons
Logo: Trisha Louise Prieto
Website: Kevin Pfab
