Waititi's "sad lost souls" jab doesn't explain why critics panned Klara

Is there a weaker move in a director's playbook than telling critics they are the problem? Taika Waititi just played it, and he picked Halloween to do it.

According to Variety, Waititi called the critics of Klara and the Sun "irrelevant" and "sad lost souls," and said he hasn't read a review in 15 years, adding that he does listen to the people. Brazilian outlet Omelete reports the post went up on his Instagram. Other outlets tie it to a 28% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes. The film stars Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams, and per CNN Brasil it opens in Brazil on November 5.

"I don't read reviews" is a shield, not an argument

Start with the logic. If you haven't read a review in almost 15 years, you can't know what this particular batch of reviews says. You also can't claim critics are out of touch with a film whose complaints you haven't looked at. The two statements cancel each other out. Either he reads them, and the jab is personal, or he doesn't, and the jab is blind.

We think this is the real tell. A director who is confident in a movie usually has something to say about it: what he was after, what he'd defend, what he'd concede. Waititi offered a verdict on the people who judged the film instead. That isn't confidence. It's a defensive reflex dressed up as swagger.

Calling critics obsolete is the easy part

Waititi isn't wrong that critics and audiences sometimes diverge. Plenty of loved films were once panned. But "the public will decide" is a bet on the future, not evidence in the present. Nothing in the material we have shows how audiences are reacting to Klara and the Sun. And in the coverage we've seen, the conversation is drifting toward the spat and away from the movie.

The headline of Omelete's review is instructive on its own: even with Jenna Ortega shining, it says, Klara and the Sun is "mais um tropeço" (another stumble) for Taika Waititi. That is a mixed verdict a filmmaker could engage with: if the performance works and the film doesn't, where did it go wrong? "Sad lost souls" doesn't engage with anything.

There's also that word, "another." If a critic frames a film as part of a pattern, a director who lashes out feeds that story instead of ending it.

The better response was available, and it's cheaper

A shrug would have worked. So would a plain defense of the film's ambitions, or silence while the release runs its course. Any of those would have left Waititi looking secure. Instead, an Instagram post on Halloween, full of insults, turned a review cycle into a character study of the director. As World of Reel put it, you can't help but chuckle at the lack of subtlety, and we think that's the kind of attention a film trying to find an audience doesn't need.

Our verdict: the audience is free to love the film, and Waititi is free to ignore reviews. But if he wants to persuade anyone that the critics got it wrong, the burden is on him to say why. Insulting the people who disagree is not an argument. Our advice for readers is simple: when it opens in Brazil on November 5, or whenever it reaches you, judge it yourself. Waititi says he listens to the people, so be the people. Just don't take the director's word, or the critics', as a substitute for your own eyes.