Deep into “Klara and the Sun,” the character portrayed by Amy Adams remarks that grief causes people to do crazy things.

Viewing the film through that lens helps you accept some of the choices made by Adams’ desperate mother, Chrissie, as well as the namesake robot at the center of the latest big-screen offering from highly regarded New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi.

For the most part, “Klara” is an engaging and thoughtful film, set in a dystopian future where, following a third world war and the related banning of the internet, human-like androids are commonplace.

Still, it feels as if Waititi — director of two “Thor” movies and the exceptional 2019 film “Jojo Rabbit” — has trouble wrapping his arms around the 2021 novel by Nobel Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, adapting it for the screen with co-writer Dahvi Waller.

Jenna Ortega’s Klara is an older model of Artificial Friend, a B1, languishing in a small store with others. Their chances for ongoing survival are bleak — and made grimmer when a bigger store opens nearby, selling the more advanced B3s. (It seems no one is selling the B2s … with good reason.)

The solar-powered Klara believes the sun to be a god, praying to it daily, thanking it for all it does and asking it for good things. This behavior is seen as odd, as is her penchant for standing on one leg, and discouraged by the other B1s and the store’s manager (Natasha Lyonne).

Nonetheless, teenager Josie (Mia Tharia), having made a deal with mother Chrissie to get an AF, falls for Klara’s odd charms as the latter is enjoying a coveted spot in the storefront window. The affluent Chrissie would prefer to buy a B3, wanting nothing but the best for her daughter, but to their home in remote farmland with Klara they go.

Klara is immediately devoted to Josie, seeing her as “perfect.” Before long, this leads to some trouble, as Josie convinces her to do something that proves to be unsafe, not factoring in her AF’s need to “calibrate” to her surroundings.

Chrissie didn’t like Klara before this incident and now decides to send her back to the store. When that doesn’t go as planned, the two have an unexpected and unusual bonding experience, and the dynamic flips. Meanwhile, Josie becomes suspicious of Klara as the robot spends a little time with Josie’s crush, neighbor boy Rick (Aran Murphy), but not much effort is put into that plotline, so it feels extraneous.

It’s important to know that Josie is among the “lifted,” young people who have undergone a medical procedure aimed at helping them succeed in life. A scene in which Chrissie hosts a party for other lifted teens and their parents is the film’s worst, an over-the-top affair involving the literal tossing of Artificial Friends by these artificially gifted and altogether obnoxious young people. (We are to believe, apparently, that Josie does not behave like this thanks to time spent with the unlifted Rick, who, nonetheless, is skilled in robotics, which you know will become important eventually.)

Without getting into all the details, Chrissie and Josie have endured a tragedy, and more loss may lie ahead for the family, a thought unbearable to Klara, who becomes increasingly concerned the sun isn’t hearing her prayers — and sets out to do something about it.

Ortega, often seen in horror-tinged affairs from the “Scream” franchise to the hit Netflix series “Wednesday,” is vaguely interesting but not fascinating as Klara. Her scenes with the lesser-known Tharia (“The Education of Jane Cumming”) are “Klara and the Sun” at its best — at its most intimate — but they are too few and far between, surprisingly.

We spend a lot of time with Chrissie, but this is another underwhelming performance from Adams (“Arrival,” “Sharp Objects”) following her work in the disappointing Apple TV miniseries adaptation of “Cape Fear” earlier this year. She seems stiff and distant, although some of that no doubt is in the name of portraying a mother whom Josie sees as too devoted to her work in home decorating, er, “spatial guidance,” and at one point calls her “artificial.”

Working with cinematographer Mike Berlucchi, Waititi gives what could be considered a vintage look to “Klara.” When Klara sees what she perceives to be love, for example, a glow surrounds the two people in her focus. There’s a charm to it.

Brace for what can be considered an ambiguous ending to the film. A viewer can make a literal reading of its final stretch, but treating it as metaphorical is far more interesting and thought-provoking.

The strengths outweigh the weaknesses in Waititi’s first big-screen directorial effort since the similar more-good-than-bad soccer-based 2023 dramedy “Next Goal Wins.” However, we know he’s capable of more than this, so we look forward to him hitting a higher mark again.

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‘KLARA AND THE SUN’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements, some violence and strong language)

Running time: 1:56

How to watch: In theaters Oct. 23

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