"Sheep in the Box is the latest film from Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan's leading director of deceptively gentle-seeming dramas, and it takes place in a near future in which a bereaved couple decide to lease a robot copy of their child, who died two years ago. Otone Komoto (Haruka Ayase) is an architect while her husband Kensuke (Daigo Yamamoto) is a woodworker, and they haven't been mourning their son Kakeru so much as they've been burying their feelings in their work and a display of normalcy."
"Then a company called REbirth ships a dainty advertisement to Otone - they were apparently, less tastefully, also at Kakeru's funeral - and the bereaved woman is feeling vulnerable enough to sign them up for an informational session. REbirth makes "humanoids," androids tailored to look like a deceased loved one and powered by generative AI that's been fed with photos and home videos."
"While eating at the company cafe after the presentation, Otone and Kensuke meet a child version of a humanoid who's been brought back to REbirth HQ for maintenance. While his mother cheerfully and alarmingly shares that she basically lives for this artificial echo of her late son now, all the Komoto focus on is how lifelike the robot is."
"Sheep in the Box isn't blazing new territory here in terms of premise - it's treading down paths that were blazed by A.I. Artificial Intelligence and, yes, Her, albeit much closer to a reality in which some version of the technology portrayed on screen is going to be on offer. The difference is that, due to that proximity and to the Koreeda of it all, Sheep in the Box exudes a melancholy resignation about the idea that humanity is going to do this rather than being driven"
A near-future bereaved couple leases a robot copy of their child who died two years earlier. The mother is an architect and the father is a woodworker, and they cope by burying feelings in work and maintaining normal routines. A company advertises humanoids tailored to look like a deceased loved one, using generative AI trained on photos and home videos. After attending an informational session, the couple meets a child version of a humanoid brought to the company for maintenance. The mother expresses cheerful devotion to the artificial echo, while the couple fixates on how lifelike the robot is. The story treats the technology as an impending human choice rather than a distant fantasy.
Read at Vulture
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