A woman’s robotic companion helps her solve a puzzling mystery in dark comedy Sunny
Imagine learning that everything you thought you knew about your marriage was a lie. Suzie (Parks and Recreation alum Rashida Jones) makes this discovery when a plane crash claims her spouse and child, shattering the life she has built in Kyoto in the process. To add insult to injury, Suzie is then given an overly cheerful, personalized robot called Sunny, built by her husband, to help process her grief — which understandably takes her by surprise, considering she believed he developed refrigerators, not robots. This may seem like a complex enough setup for the new series from star and producer Jones, but once this woman and robot duo hit the road in search of answers, the darkly comedic thriller makes thematic pit stops that feel unexpected, even under these unusual circumstances.
Adapted from Japan-based Irish writer Colin O’Sullivan’s novel, Dark Manual by series creator Katie Robbins (The Affair), the story about grief mixed with tech paranoia has transformed into an exploration of female friendship of an unfamiliar kind. “I’ve always been drawn to stories about what happens in the wake of loss and had simultaneously been thinking a lot about the potential of AI,” says Robbins. “In the book, Sunny is a male robot and very much Suzie’s nemesis. But I thought, what if you turned that on its head? Suzie, who is in this place of great isolation and distress, needs to open up. What if Sunny were potentially the thing that would unlock that for her?”
To bring a deeper dimension to the story, Robbins did research into Human Robot Interaction as a form of therapy. “There is this idea within robotics that AI can serve as a surrogate or a transitional object for people in times of need,” she says. “When you are scarred, it can feel scary to try to reach out and connect to another person. But a robot isn’t going to hurt your feelings, they’re not going to leave you, they’re not going to die. That became the jumping off point for telling this twisty thriller, while simultaneously exploring themes of loneliness and connection.”
Jones likens the friendship between newly widowed Suzie and Sunny the robot, voiced by Joanna Sotomura, to the one in classic ’80s comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles . “The first hour of the movie, you’re like, ‘This is the most annoying boundaryless dude of all time,’ John Candy. Then he has this beautiful speech about himself and his past, and it earns the whole thing back, where you’re like, ‘Oh my God, I love him so much. Now I understand this character,’” she says. “I feel like Sunny and Suzie are a little bit like that, where Sunny comes in so hot and Suzie’s not somebody who responds to all-out love bombing. But Sunny’s loyal and knows more about her family than anybody else, so Suzie crumbles and starts to care about this maybe robot, maybe friend — maybe dangerous friend.”
For Robbins, there was no one quite like Jones to play the part of standoffish Suzie. “We were looking for a Suzie who could have the sharp elbows and prickliness but still have a charisma and likability and that you needed for the audience to connect with this woman even as she’s trying to push us away. You wanted to feel for her,” says Robbins. “Rashida has this extraordinary ability to carry both of those things.” When Jones was presented with the project, she was immediately drawn to the character she describes as ornery and guarded. “She’s had some trauma and difficulty and instead of dealing with it head on, she’s just run from it and it keeps chasing her. I like when somebody is so damaged and then their worst nightmare comes true,” says Jones. “Also, the themes of grief, belonging, betrayal and a general existential investigation were interesting to me. And this imagining of Japan a little bit ahead of now. I like things where the tech is seamlessly woven into the narrative of the show.”
The tech may feel seamless within the series, but in real life Sunny sometimes needed a timeout. “She was overheating,” recalls director and executive producer Lucy Tcherniak. “We were shooting a lot of it in the height of a very humid summer in Japan. As all of us, robots don’t love the heat. Sometimes, we’d have to wait for Sunny to have a moment.”
Despite her occasional diva moments, Sunny managed to steal the hearts of everyone on set. “We wanted to create something that had these beautiful Japanese lines and a face with simple expressions that felt like they could convey humanness without going into ‘uncanny valley’ territory. Something that you would see and immediately warm to,” says Robbins. “I have two little kids and Rashida has a son, and there were various other children who would at times visit set and they would just go up and start talking to Sunny as if she were part of the team. So, it worked, even as she was going on the fritz in the humid Kyoto July. It was extraordinary.”
Sunny, streaming Wednesdays, on Apple TV+