Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Klara and the Sun is the kind of treatment that makes you wonder what was so special about the source material in the first place. Published in 2021, it is the latest novel by famed Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro that Waititi has chosen to bring to the screen. Kirkus Reviews described the book as a “haunting fable of a lonely, moribund world that is entirely too plausible.” Although I haven’t read the novel myself, I’m inclined to believe that assessment based purely on Ishiguro’s reputation. That’s what makes Waititi’s hiring and treatment of the material so confusing. Why add so many jokes, none of them funny? Why flatten the emotional throughline into something so generic? I don’t know, but I feel as though the two hours I’ve spent with this cinematic rendering have already been two too many.

The title refers to Klara (Jenna Ortega) and her special relationship with the sun. While you and I rely on the sun indirectly to sustain life, Klara literally needs sunlight on her skin to survive. That’s because she’s an Artificial Friend (AF), a lifelike robot companion designed as a blank slate to help a human navigate the tumultuous teenage years. Unfortunately, she’s an outdated model, one her manufacturer has apparently decided to market on the strength of her quirkiness and Manic Pixie Dream Girl energy. Anyone who’s seen Elizabethtown can tell you that was never really in style, leaving Klara to sit in the front window of a dingy shop, hoping someone in the smog-covered futuristic city will want her. Natasha Lyonne plays the Store Manager, tasked with caring for these robots while desperately trying to move them off the shelves. Meanwhile, the hotter, newer models are being showcased right across the street.

With her large, wide eyes and perpetually inquisitive smile, Ortega is a bundle of mannered exuberance. She’s always looking up, both because she needs the sunlight and because she’s searching for answers to life’s mysteries. Believing the sun to be a sentient being, she asks for its blessing each day as though praying to God. Miraculously, Josie (Mia Tharia) becomes Klara’s new owner, much to the reluctance of her mother, Chrissy (Amy Adams). Klara is taken to the family mansion in the countryside to serve as Josie’s companion. Having been “lifted” - a process that chemically enhances a person’s intelligence - Josie has become a genius, yet she’s somehow grown bored with life.

Largely filtered through Klara’s innocent, wide-eyed perspective, Waititi and co-writer Dahvi Waller employ the age-old strategy of using an outsider to illuminate the human condition. By asking questions and searching for the meaning of love, isn’t Klara pursuing the essence of the human experience? Possibly. Waititi, at least, tries every trick in his book to warm the audience’s heart. Michael Giacchino’s score does much of the heavy lifting, often to the point of emotional manipulation. Combining that insincere sentimentality with Waititi’s increasingly diluted brand of humor, here, entirely devoid of laughs, makes for an altogether unsatisfying experience.

Once again, Amy Adams finds herself underserved in a maternal role, draped in WASPy costuming and struggling to maintain control of her deteriorating life. At least she gets to inhabit some interesting sets designed by Ra Vincent, each filled with subtle clues about how this future came to be. A half-destroyed tank sits in a wheat field; everything has reverted to analog, and the streets are perpetually filthy. The production design is evocative enough to make you wish the film were a silent feature—or perhaps just a coffee-table book filled with illustrations.

Earlier this year, Hirokazu Kore-eda made Sheep in the Box, a similar robot-and-AI story that will likely rank among his weakest films. Klara literally emerges from a box here, ready to send Waititi down that same path of treacly humanity and affirmations about the joys of life. At this point, these robots might as well be high-tech car keys, designed for us to jingle in front of our own faces until we convince ourselves we’ve learned something about who we are. I’d rather grab some real keys and drive away.

Sony Pictures Releasing will release Klara and the Sun in theaters nationwide on October 23rd.