Jenna Ortega’s New Sci-Fi Movie Looks More Heartbreaking Than Futuristic

Jenna Ortega has fought monsters, serial killers, and supernatural mysteries. Now she’s playing something much stranger.

The first trailer for Klara And The Sun has finally arrived, giving audiences their first look at director Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s bestselling novel. But unlike most futuristic sci-fi films, the trailer isn’t focused on technology, action, or dystopian spectacle.

It’s focused on loneliness and that may be what makes it so unsettling.

Check out the trailer here:

Jenna Ortega Isn’t Playing A Human

She’s Playing Someone Trying To Understand Them

Ortega stars as Klara, an “Artificial Friend” designed to help lonely children. Powered by solar energy and created to provide companionship, Klara spends her days observing humans while waiting for someone to choose her. Eventually, she enters the life of a sick young girl named Josie and becomes emotionally invested in helping her.

On paper, it sounds like a science-fiction premise. In the trailer, it feels more like an emotional drama.

The most striking moments aren’t the futuristic technology. They’re the moments where Klara quietly watches people, trying to understand emotions that seem natural to everyone except her.

This Doesn’t Look Like A Typical Taika Waititi Movie

Taika Waititi is known for balancing humor with emotion. But Klara And The Sun appears to lean much further toward the emotional side of that equation.

Waititi himself has described the adaptation as one of the most challenging projects of his career because the story’s real focus isn’t technology. It’s love, grief, faith, and human connection.

That’s visible throughout the trailer. The film doesn’t seem interested in asking whether artificial intelligence can become dangerous.

It seems more interested in asking whether an artificial being can learn what it means to care about someone.

Amy Adams May Be Just As Important As Klara

While Ortega is clearly the center of the story, Amy Adams appears to play a crucial role.

The trailer hints at a family carrying deep emotional wounds, with Klara slowly becoming part of that healing process. Several moments suggest the relationship between Josie and her mother could be just as important as the science-fiction elements surrounding them.

That emotional focus is part of what makes the film stand out. Most AI stories revolve around machines becoming more human.

Klara And The Sun looks like it may be exploring how humans struggle to connect with each other in the first place.

Why The Trailer Feels So Relevant Right Now

What’s fascinating is that the movie arrives during a period when conversations about artificial intelligence are everywhere.

Most of those conversations focus on jobs, technology, and the future of work. Klara And The Sun takes a different approach.

It focuses on isolation.

Connection.

Companionship.

And the growing fear that people are becoming more disconnected from one another. That’s why the trailer feels unexpectedly timely. The technology may be futuristic. The emotions aren’t.

This Could Be One Of Jenna Ortega’s Most Surprising Roles Yet

Audiences know Ortega from projects like Wednesday, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, and various horror films.

Klara feels completely different. The character is quiet, observant, hopeful, and emotionally vulnerable in ways that stand apart from many of Ortega’s previous performances.

If the film delivers on what the trailer promises, Klara And The Sun may end up being remembered less as a sci-fi movie and more as a story about what it means to be human.

And judging by the first footage, that’s exactly what Taika Waititi wants audiences thinking about when they leave the theater.