Taika Waititi says critics who dislike Klara And The Sun are just "sad lost souls"

The director’s ire was provoked by the generally poor reception professional critics have given his new film, the sci-fi satire Kazuo Ishiguro adaptation Klara And The Sun. With review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes’ admittedly glib shorthand offering up only a 26% positive rating for the Jenna Ortega-starring film, Waititi leapt into the discourse on Instagram, calling critics of his work, “sad lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus settled, and became critics.” Waititi capped off his post by pronouncing such critics as “Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin.” 

Now, the standard response in cases where one’s entire profession—not to say art—is thrown in the bin by a detractor is to get defensive. Especially since that whole “failed artists” dig is, as Brad Bird knows, going to cut many reviewers the deepest. And while Waititi has received plenty of critical warmth over the years for his particular blend of Kiwi deadpan and sentimentality, it’s certainly not a lonely opinion that Klara And The Sun, to quote one of the A.V. Club’s own irrelevant and out of touch reviewers in Jesse Hassenger, traffics in “undercooked social satire, adrift performers, and Waititi’s tendency to resort to smarmy caricature.” 

And while smarting critics might take issue with Waititi claiming in his post that he hasn’t “read a review aimed at me and my peers for almost 15 years” by asking snarkily how he heard Klara And The Sun was getting roundly poor reviews in the first place, that’s just petty. For a talented filmmaker who’s delivered more good films than outright bad ones in his idiosyncratic career to renew the battle against critics is just the age-old brushfire war breaking out again.