May 2, 2023, 1:25pm
Does Taika Waititi ever sleep?
It seems like every other week brings news that the Oscar-winning New Zealander has attached himself to another Hollywood project. Time Bandits, Interior Chinatown, The Incal, Thor 6: OMGods, some Glup Shitto Star Wars nonsense…the list goes on.
How does this man find the time, or the energy, to work on a half dozen major Hollywood projects simultaneously, while regularly making the 16-hour L.A. to Wellington flight home, and maintaining a robust social life? What class of amphetamines are you on, Taika?
Anyway, the newest addition to his lengthy dance card is a film adaptation of Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro Klara and the Sun, which Waititi is now in talks to direct for Sony’s 3000 Pictures.
Set in a semi-dystopian future in which certain children are genetically engineered for enhanced academic ability, Klara and the Sun is the story of a solar-powered AF (Artificial Friend) who is by a sickly child to be her companion. Its release was a major publishing event back in the spring of 2021, and the book went on to garner a raft of strong reviews as well as a Booker Prize nomination.
Despite the futuristic setting and robo protagonist, Klara and the Sun is (as you would expect from Ish) a quiet, tonally muted novel, and not one I would have thought well-suited to Waititi’s antic sensibilities.
I will, however, reserve judgement until I see the trailer.