Taika Waititi’s new film, Klara and the Sun, has crashed and burned critically. Reviews have called it clumsy, saccharine, unbearably affected, and lacking in depth, none of which applies to the Kazuo Ishiguro novel it aims to adapt. This has cost the film its international distribution, since distributors fear it will be an absolute box-office flop. Something Waititi has decided to take personally. Taking aim at critics.
A film that’s doing worse than the director’s ego
With 24% positive scores on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s Waititi’s worst-received film to date. And on Instagram he has decided to react in a very unprofessional way. “I haven’t read a single review about me or my peers in almost 15 years. But I do listen to people. So this Halloween, let’s spare a thought for those sad lost souls who couldn’t fulfill their dream of becoming artists and, because of that, ended up being critics. The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit. Irrelevant. Disconnected from reality. Obsolete. In the trash,” he declared.
To claim that critics don’t know what they’re talking about, he stressed that Klara and the Sun has 74% positive reviews from audiences. The problem is that the rest of the numbers don’t speak to any supposed positive audience response. After opening on October 23 in 880 theaters, which is a fairly wide release, it has grossed just $1.7 million so far, with an estimated production cost of between $20 million and $44 million. So it seems that the film is an absolute failure both critically and at the box office.
That would explain the distributors’ decision to cancel its release outside the US. Not only because the reviews are very negative, but because the audience response isn’t backing it up. And while Waititi may want to believe that the critics are to blame, everything suggests that the problem lies in his own film.
