Final Rating: 3/5
In Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Sheep in the Box, a couple adopts a robot made to look and act like their deceased son. In re-integrating their “son” into the family, the parents are forced to once again confront the grief of losing a child while coming to terms with the fact that, no matter their opinions of the new robot, he’ll never be the boy they lost.
Sheep stars Haruka Ayase and Daigo Yamamoto as architect Komoto Otone and her carpenter husband Komoto Kensuke. Two years after the death of their son Kakeru, the couple is contacted by a company called ReBirth, offering them a trial of a humanoid robot. After providing pictures and videos of their late son, the couple welcomes a new Kakeru (Rimu Kuwaki) into their home.
Sheep takes its name from an exchange in The Little Prince. In the second chapter of the book, the Prince asks a pilot to draw him a sheep but is repeatedly unhappy with the result. Frustrated, the pilot draws him a box with airholes, saying “your sheep is in there,” to which the Prince replies “this is exactly the way I wanted it!”
Similarly, the film’s core conflict lies in what the Komotos actually want from their son, or a recreation of him. Perhaps they had no expectations from Kakeru while he was alive. In bringing in a robot to replace him, both expect a void to be filled.
Each parent had a different relationship to Kakeru and has dealt with his absence differently. His mother, Otone, wants to see the smart boy she loved play with blocks and ask her about her art. His father, Kensuke, feels guilty that his gambling made him late to pick up his son from school on the day he died, along with a deep dissatisfaction at the idea that his son’s death was an accident.
To him, a robot trained to behave like Kakeru – maybe even have his memories – could help him reexamine that fateful day, and could reveal some vital information he’d missed.
Kakeru, the robot brought into the world to play a 7-year-old, is aware he’s playing a role at the same time he’s discovering the world. More than anything, he just wants to learn who he is, and who he can be.
Otone and Kensuke adjust well, though not quickly, to their robotic son. The new Kakeru mirrors his counterpart’s inquisitive nature and habits, and takes an interest in things he’s told Kakeru liked. There’s never any question, however, that this new Kakeru is a robot. He doesn’t eat, he powers off if he gets too far away from his parents, and he can’t feel pain. He also reads much faster than a 7-year-old, and, lacking any way to peer into the old Kakeru’s mind, is severely limited in his ability to imitate the Komoto’s son.
Occasionally, one of the parents will accidentally let their disappointment sneak through. Otone, when questioned by Kakeru if she would prefer if he were not around, snaps, saying “the real Kakeru would never do this.” Tonally, it’s a regrettable but not uncommon parental outburst, for which Otone later apologizes. But it’s also the first time Otone drops her mask, addressing Kakeru not as her son, but as a machine pretending to be her son, and doing a bad job of it.
Kensuke has a similar moment, seizing on Kakeru’s recognition of an old kindergarten classmate to see if the robot has any of his son’s other memories. He hastily drives him to the last place his son was seen alive, only to be reassured that Kakeru’s memories are only what was in his training data and certainly couldn’t contain any new information.
Sheep is reminiscent of Steven Spielberg’s A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and Spike Jonze’s Her; films that wrestle with the relationship between humans and technology, especially artificial intelligence. In the 25 years since A.I. released, and the 13 since Her, technology has advanced rapidly. Consumer artificial intelligence is widely available in a form resembling Spielberg and Jonze’s visions.
With Sheep releasing into this technological landscape, the most intriguing aspect is how Kore-eda chooses to portray a near-future that could be tomorrow. Indeed, generative AI is mentioned, though the AI of Sheep still feels stuck in an older vision of the future. Kakeru is fed a series of images and videos to train him on his parents’ desired character, and takes in new knowledge at an astounding rate, but Sheep in the Box isn’t a story of a boy-shaped robot learning to imitate people in his environment. Rather, it’s a Pinocchio story about a fake boy becoming a real boy as he learns about the world. Kore-eda’s take on this story is interesting, but surprisingly nonmodern.
Rather, the film ties itself more closely to The Little Prince than a technological commentary. Kakeru simply can’t be the exact son his mother and father think they want – no pilot could draw them a satisfying sheep. But perhaps the exact Kakeru they want – or rather the one they need – is inside the humanoid box he shipped in, waiting to be revealed.
Thank you to NEON for the screener.
