I love the films of Hirokazu Kore-eda, who is one of the finest filmmakers working in Japan today. His tender and minimalist style is often at odds with the life-changing themes and grand emotions his stories depict, yet his ability to reconcile between the two almost always pulls through.
So it was with great disappointment and confusion that I walked out of the screening for Sheep in the Box, his latest sci-fi drama, which features all the hallmarks of Kore-eda's filmography, but none of the wit or humanity his other works exhibit. In their place is sugary fantasy, unexplored ideas, and an inert, aimless story that feels like an extended setup for a second act that never arrives.
The film follows the broken family of Otone (Haruka Ayasi) and Kensuke (Daigo Yamamoto), who lost their son under tragic circumstances two years prior. They've kept going, but it's clear both are on autopilot. What joy their lives had died with their child, Kakeru (Rimu Kuwaki).
Then, out of nowhere, Otone receives a promotional offer from REbirth, an AI company promising to return Kakeru to life as a learning, growing replica, powered by their custom software. Otone is intrigued; Kensuke is disgusted. Even as they visit the headquarters of REbirth and witness the robot children in action, they can't escape the feeling that this is a mere facsimile of a memory.
As Kakeru arrives, Otone can't help but react as if she's been given a second chance at motherhood. Even as she has to deal with Kakeru's appliance-like quirks – he can't go further than a few meters from his owners without shutting down, for one – Otone treats Kakeru like her son, through and through.
Kensuke, on the other hand, is more suspicious. He refuses to let Kakeru call him "dad" and insists to Otone that their new child is more akin to a Roomba than a person. When his armor begins to chip, he unloads his feelings of regret and shame to Kakeru, asking for forgiveness from a machine designed to say exactly what its owners want to hear.
There are elements here of a stronger, more complex portrait of our relationship with technology. At times, Kore-eda even pushes the boundaries in ways that are deeply intriguing. For example, watch how Kensuke takes Kakeru to the scene where the original was found dead. He begs for the replica to use its AI processing to provide answers. Maybe it was more than an accident, and there is someone, anyone to blame. But Kakeru cannot, because these memories were not programmed in him at the factory.
It's a heartbreaking scene that feels outside the realm of everything else Sheep in the Box wants to explore. In multiple instances, Kore-eda raises the question of whether a machine is a person if we love it enough, or is it just a delusion we've built to soothe our loneliness? But just as easily as he poses such thematic problems, he disregards them in favor of easier answers.
Before it has even fully explored all other thought experiments, Sheep in the Box introduces other replicas, some of whom dream of a society of their own, and peppers them in the narrative as further red herrings. They appear and disappear conveniently to the plot, until a wholly unearned third act leaps fully into fairy tale territory.
Kore-eda's directing is as assured as ever, and his leading actors Ayasi and Yamamoto are superlative. Both Otono and Kensuke feel like real people, and the actors fantastically pivot between painful longing and unquestioning optimism as they navigate the treacherous waters of grief. They are so fascinating that when the film switches focus to other matters entirely, Sheep in the Box feels empty and lifeless without them.
There are two separate and potentially great films in Sheep in the Box that struggle to co-exist. Just as one starts to find its shape, the other takes over, and neither has enough room to breathe. The result is a frustrating and unfinished thought experiment of our relationship to grief in a world of cold, calculating technology. One that poses more questions than it could ever answer, or even wants to.
