Sheep in the Box

Japanese humanist Hirokazu Koreeda is known for packing a sentimental wallop into shrewdly-observed melodramas about families and children. So, it’s curious that he returns to the sci-fi genre 28 years on from After Life (1998) – one of his most wistful and probing films to date – with a concept this loaded, yet he focuses on everything but its core emotions. Likewise, anyone looking for his sweeping manifesto on generative AI best keep those expectations in their box.

Instead, we are treated to a shallow chronicle of the continuing adventures of Otone (Haruka Ayase) and Kensuke Komoto (Japanese comedian Daigo) and their adopted humanoid child Kakeru (Rimu Kuwaki). This adorable seven-year-old comes with an off button and a charging chair. Kakeru is a robot doppelganger for their flesh-and-blood child who died two years previously in circumstances not broached until the midpoint. 

Koreeda doesn’t waste time wrestling with a ‘should they/shouldn’t they adopt a humanoid’ line of questioning. We are in a near-future world that seems to have put ethical arguments around AI in the past and where big companies send adverts via insect holograms. One propaganda butterfly from tech company REBirth is all it takes for Otone to feel the rush of temptation. Kensuke is sceptical enough to keep his distance, but doesn’t feel strongly enough to fight with his wife over her impulse purchase of luxury goods.

The story ambles on from here in a sunny, anecdotal fashion with lots of things happening, but few of them landing. Yes, our grieving parents avoid thinking or talking about what happened to their real son. The humanoid manages to be a world-beating displacement activity and a visual reminder of everything they are not saying. Despite the plausibility of this avoidant logic, Koreeda’s depiction of their everyday life has an uncharacteristic flatness that, even if intentional, does not translate well to a cinematic experience.

This is a very different creation from Spielberg’s AI Artificial Intelligence

Subplots abound. Kensuke tries to use his AI son to solve what may have been the criminal death of his real one. Meanwhile Kakeru is contained in a boxed-up corner of the family home, and one of his prized possessions is a snowglobe of ‘The Little Prince’, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s beloved and – significantly – adventurous character. This foreshadows the appearance of a Matrix-looking older boy who courts Kakeru on behalf of a humanoid separatist movement. 

Koreeda’s empathy tips towards the child-shaped tech, evoking the arc of the operating system in Spike Jonze’s Her. He shows less curiosity about how this humanoid can emotionally shepherd its bereft humans; consequently, despite the conceptual parallels, this is a very different creation from Steven Spielberg’s AI Artificial Intelligence. 

The film is strongest when it allows the performances by Haruka Ayase and Daigo to expand beyond their characters’ reactive headspaces. As required by the story, they keep to their own lanes despite living in the same house. When intimacy rises in a scene where Otone dry shampoos Kensuke’s hair, this touching moment is a jolting reminder of what they have avoided giving each other. There is life in this film, even if it is buried under a very woolly coat.

Sheep in the Box premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.