CABLE | Rashida Jones Mourns A 'Sunny' Disposition on Apple TV+

"I'd robot murder someone for this chair alone."

A24 Television

Actress/filmmaker Rashida Jones stars in the oddball dark sci-fi comedy, Sunny, based on the 2018 novel The Dark Manual by Colin O’Sullivan. Set in Kyoto, series creator Katie Robbins establishes a vaguely tech-centric future where A.I.-programmed domestic robot companions (called "homebots") are commonplace throughout Japanese society but might have troubling (possibly murderous) unknown motivations when not otherwise being helpful, doing mundane tasks.

Surrounded by Jones as an American expat, Suzi, is a fresh array of talented Japanese character actors from Drive My Car star Hidetoshi Nishijima to singer/songwriter Annie the Clumsy, as her recently deceased roboticist husband appears in flashbacks, who disappeared mysteriously with their young son in a plane crash, and a quirky new bartender friend helping her uncover a possible robot-linked murder conspiracy.

Initially directed by Lucy Tcherniak, Jones' performance ably balances her character from mannered exasperation to anxious grieving while trying to figure out what's going on and her husband's unexplained actions before his apparent death.

There's a strange but sleekly intriguing immediacy to the tone of Sunny's bleakly offbeat comedic leanings. Jones, as a lonely sad sack, propels much of the A.I.-themed thriller into deftly amusing territory inspired by a foreigner in Japan dramedies à la Lost in Translation with the robotic sensibilities of something like Big Hero 6—thanks to the titular helper robot (voiced by Joanna Sotomura) paired with Suzi.

Sunny's ten-episode season is available to stream weekly on Apple TV+.


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