Congrats to Sunny star and govt producer Rashida Jones for convincing Apple and A24 to take her on an expenses-paid Japanese trip. Too unhealthy what the Parks and Recreation star introduced house to indicate for it’s a trendy slog of a sci-fi thriller, 10 plodding episodes that squander an intriguing premise on somebody who efficiently dares you to not care about her.
In this adaptation of Colin O’Sullivan’s novel The Dark Manual, Jones performs Suzie Sakamoto, a Kyoto-based expat who’s simply discovered that her husband Masa (Drive My Car’s Hidetoshi Nishijima) and son Zen (Fares Belkheir) have died in a mysterious airplane crash. Or did they? It all appears attention-grabbing from the outset: Suzie is an abnormal particular person thrown into a rare circumstance, whose tragedy may truly be a part of a conspiracy. She begins creating doubts, particularly when she calls Masa’s telephone and, as a substitute of going straight to voicemail, it retains on ringing.
Even extra eyebrow-raising is what Masa has left behind. As if in anticipation of the loss, he’s purchased his spouse a present: Sunny (voiced by Joanna Sotomura), an cute, chipper android referred to as a homebot. Sunny has been programmed to be a perfect companion for Suzie, with a full vary of human feelings and even the flexibility to imitate a few of Masa’s personal gestures. But Sunny’s friendliness and familiarity make her an uncomfortable annoyance to the delinquent Suzie – till she conveniently realizes that Sunny may very well be the important thing to studying the reality behind not simply Masa and Zen’s disappearance, however the remainder of her husband’s cascading secrets and techniques.
Add a mod-futuristic Kyoto the place non-Japanese audio system like Suzie can put on earpieces to speak with locals and other people deal programming code like medication, and Sunny appears primed to supply the identical type of mundane-meets-sci-if delight as Severance. Instead, what must be a propulsive thriller with a slick aptitude, nice setting, and odd couple leads finally ends up spinning its wheels. The thriller of what occurred to Suzie’s husband and son turns into more and more convoluted with every reveal of a brand new shadowy determine from Masa’s previous. Worse, none is ever attention-grabbing sufficient to justify the period of time it takes to reply any of the questions Sunny is asking. A big a part of the blame for that slowdown falls on an overreliance on flashbacks, to each set up Suzie and Masa’s relationship and fill the viewers in on what occurred to Masa earlier than Suzie figures it out herself. We’re at all times selecting up necessary clues far upfront of Suzie, which makes it onerous to remain engaged together with her quest to uncover the identical data. Adding insult to damage, Sunny retains its protagonist at midnight for so long as potential.
Yet Suzie herself is simply as a lot at fault for Sunny’s diminishing returns. While her journey is inherently emotional – a grieving mom and spouse is compelled to open herself as much as others with the intention to unpack a large tragedy – Suzie is something however. You can’t actually blame it on Jones: She’s given little to work with as Suzie, who by no means evolves from the pissed-off, bird-flipping, misanthropic misfit we meet initially. As drily humorous because the present and its principal character will be, it’s onerous to develop into emotionally invested in an abrasive character unwilling to vary. Sunny’s success relies on us caring about Suzie, her household, and the hazard that surrounds them each. However, Suzie appears hellbent on making us do something however.
The solid of characters round her is small, but extra colourful. Suzie and Sunny are joined by blue-haired barista Mixxy (singer-songwriter annie the clumsy), who commits to the problem of breaking Suzie out of her shell. You (of Terrace House fame) is nice because the sinister Hime, though she suffers from being a part of Sunny’s weakest storyline, involving Masa’s dealings with the Yakuza. And there’s some enjoyable available with Suzie’s push-and-pull together with her suspicious mother-in-law, Noriko (Judy Ongg). But they’re additionally hamstrung by Sunny’s sluggish pacing, because the characters reveal themselves painfully slowly. Mixxy and Suzie’s relationship continues to be frustratingly uneven by the top, and Noriko’s presence is more and more restricted for eye-rolling causes.
Sunny can be a shiny spot, a robotic with extra depth than the people round her; her effort to win Suzie’s affection and perceive her personal objective is legitimately shifting. She’s additionally emblematic of the present’s failure to develop into a fascinating piece of science fiction: An Eleventh-hour try to beef up Sunny’s backstory, and really make use of the quirky stylishness teased by way of the flippantly futuristic manufacturing design, comes approach too late, hinting at a extra daring, even experimental tackle O’Sullivan’s novel that by no means got here to be.
