Rashida Jones stars as a grieving, alienated ex-pat in “Sunny,” a quirky new 10-episode dramedy that begins Wednesday on Apple TV+. Suzie is an American woman living in Japan, who is married to a Japanese man but has to rely on an in-ear translator when she is out and about on her own. After her husband and young son disappear in a commercial plane crash, she feels totally untethered, often clashing with her chilly mother-in-law, Noriko (Judy Ongg), and spilling her guts to a friendly bartender, Mixxy (Annie the Clumsy).
Her husband’s colleague drops off a homebot for her — a chirpy humanoid named Sunny (voiced by Joanna Sotomura) with a noggin like the Las Vegas Sphere. Suzie’s husband, Masa (Hidetoshi Nishijima), designed and programmed the robot especially for her, the colleague says. How odd! Masa always told Suzie that his job at the big technology company was in the refrigerators division …. (She does indeed have a snazzy refrigerator: buttery yellow with a ridged porthole window on the freezer.)
It is also odd because Suzie claims to hate robots. “A robot killed my mother,” she says dryly; it was a self-driving car, explains Noriko. But Suzie isn’t really in a position to turn down help and companionship, and Sunny is awfully persistent. “Robots are expressions of their creators,” the colleague tells her, and any lingering tidbits of her husband are of course quite precious. Especially because, now that you mention it, maybe Masa was lying about a lot of things, including his connections to organized crime. And — eek! They’re after us!
Much of the story and plotting in “Sunny” is chasing its own tail, but gosh it’s a fun loop. At a time when many shows have ceded ground to second-screen viewing, “Sunny” has a distinctive visual style. Drab, gray swaths are punctuated by pops of yellow, and scenes of seedy nightlife and packed shopping kiosks burst with neon squiggles and candy-bright outfits. It’s all exceptionally evocative, and the show’s mood and vibe linger like a lover’s perfume.
Suzie wears only the clompiest of platform shoes no matter the occasion, and her clothing is all architectural sacks, boxy tunics and lucky underwear that comes up to her armpits. The way she dresses is by far the most interesting thing about her, and it gives her an image of being cool, artistic, independent — except that isn’t how she behaves, unless drinking whiskey counts. In some ways, Jones’s performance is the more robotic one; even her big meltdowns feel muted compared to the WALL-E vibe of Sunny’s big emoji eyes. Sure, Suzie is numb and in total shock, but she acts the same in flashbacks, too.
More interesting is Masa, charming and erudite, as well as elusive and avoidant. In an extended-flashback episode, we watch him program a robot to pick up garbage. But discerning trash from not-trash is a tricky and even philosophical task. “What does this thing mean,” Masa coaches the happy rolling bin to ask itself, “at this very moment, to whomever it belongs?” Any old vacuum can suck up debris, but it takes a special bot to understand sentiment.
There’s a real edge to the show’s style and suggestions but often a hollowness where its beating heart — or even just the more reliable mechanics of plot and pacing — would be. But with buns this tasty you only half miss the burger. The most interesting, complex and original aspects of “Sunny” are its biggest ideas and its tiniest details, its questions about the relationship between technology and emotion and its sumptuous specifics such as the perfect garnish on a rococo cocktail.
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