'Sheep in the Box' Review: Koreeda's Emotionally Stunted AI Grief Drama Riffs on Spielberg
By
David Ehrlich
Hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, baked to perfection. Worth every minute at the bakery.
Summary
Hirokazu Koreeda's 'Sheep in the Box' is an emotionally restrained grief drama about a married couple in near-future Kamakura who adopt an AI-powered humanoid robot modeled after their deceased son. Unlike Koreeda's typically sentimental style, this film is surprisingly emotionally stunted by design, riffing on themes from Spielberg's 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence.' The review explores how the film deliberately withholds catharsis, focusing on the couple's stalled grieving process and the uncanny discomfort of replacing a lost child with a machine.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledA master sentimentalist like Hirokazu Koreeda riffing on a movie as soul-obliterating as Steven Spielberg's 'A.I. Artificial Intelligence' sounds like a surefire recipe for the tear-jerker of the year, so I was surprised to discover that 'Sheep in the Box' is one of the most emotionally stunted dramas the 'Monster' auteur has ever made.
To some extent, that's by design, as the original script's two major human characters — a fortysomething married couple in sunny near-future Kamakura — start to lose their place in the grieving process after they adopt an AI-powered humanoid modeled after their dead son.
The film deliberately withholds the cathartic release audiences might expect from a Koreeda film, instead forcing viewers to sit with the discomfort of an uncanny replacement.
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