After Klara and the Sun received a bruising critical reception, the director took to Instagram to dismiss reviewers as “sad lost souls,” questioning their creative ambitions and calling them irrelevant. Yet the backlash comes at a particularly difficult moment for a filmmaker whose latest project brought him into the world of Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro. Whether the adaptation has found the right balance is now a question audiences and critics are answering very differently. 

While Waititi insists that professional reviews have not occupied his attention for years, the reception of Klara and the Sun has put that distinction under an unusually bright spotlight.

Taika Waititi shared an Instagram post on October 31 featuring the film’s poster alongside its Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 78%. The contrast was difficult to ignore, with the critics’ score sitting at just 28%, marking the lowest rating of his directorial career at the time of Variety’s report.

“I haven’t read a review of anything aimed at me or my peers in almost 15 years. But I do listen to the people,” Waititi wrote. 

He then turned his attention towards reviewers, suggesting that some had become critics after failing to achieve their ambitions of becoming artists. 

“So this Halloween, let's spare a thought for those sad lost souls who couldn't achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus settled, and became critics. The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit."

"Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin,” he further wrote. 

Waititi's post arrives as Klara and the Sun faces a difficult theatrical opening. The film debuted at No. 15 at the US box office (via Variety), earning just $720,000 from 880 locations. Sony subsequently scaled back its theatrical footprint after the overwhelmingly negative reviews, including Variety's own description of the adaptation as a “calamitous” and “strained, whimsical comedy that’s ruinous.” The response has also raised questions about whether Waititi’s comedic interpretation has worked against the emotional restraint of Ishiguro’s original story.

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While Waititi has publicly challenged the critics, his leading actor has been making a conscious effort to stay away from precisely the kind of scrutiny surrounding their film.

Landing the role of Wednesday Addams transformed Jenna Ortega from a rising young performer into one of Hollywood's most recognizable faces. Netflix's Wednesday gave her a defining pop-culture character and opened doors to bigger projects. However, translating that television success into a consistent run of critically acclaimed films has proved considerably more complicated.

The Rotten Tomatoes numbers paint a particularly uneven picture. Out of her seven most recent released films, six currently sit below the 60% mark on the Tomatometer. Finestkind received 27%, followed by Miller's Girl at 30% and Winter Spring Summer or Fall at 31%. Her 2025 releases did not entirely reverse that trend either.

Death of a Unicorn managed 52%, while Hurry Up Tomorrow, the experimental psychological thriller starring The Weeknd, landed at just 14%. Her latest collaboration with Waititi, Klara and the Sun, has also struggled, with its critics' score currently standing at 26%.

For Taika Waititi now, the argument with critics is another chapter in a career that has rarely followed a predictable creative trajectory. Whether audiences ultimately agree with his assessment of Klara and the Sun remains a different conversation. 

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What do you think about his response to the film's reviews? Share your thoughts in the comments.