Taika Waititi is pushing back against the harsh critical reception for “Klara and the Sun,” pointing instead to the film’s significantly stronger audience response on Rotten Tomatoes.
The director shared the movie’s poster on Instagram alongside its 78% audience score. That figure stands in sharp contrast to the film’s 28% critics score, the lowest yet for the “Jojo Rabbit” director.
Waititi said he has spent nearly 15 years avoiding reviews of work involving himself and his peers, but argued that he still pays attention to moviegoers.
“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,” he wrote.
His caption then turned directly toward critics. “So this Halloween, let’s spare a thought for those sad lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams of becoming artists, and thus became critics,” Waititi continued. “The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit. Irrelevant. Out of touch. Obsolete. In the bin.”
A difficult theatrical debut
Waititi’s defense arrives as “Klara and the Sun” faces trouble beyond its reviews. The movie opened at No. 15 in theaters, earning $720,000 from 880 locations during its debut weekend.
Sony subsequently reduced the film’s theatrical footprint after reviews panned the release. Among the descriptions leveled at the movie were “calamitous” and a “strained, whimsical comedy that’s ruinous.”
The movie is based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel and unfolds in a dystopian future. Jenna Ortega stars as Klara, an obsolete companion android attempting to form a bond with her new owner, a sick young girl named Josie.
Ortega has also spoken recently about distancing herself from both reviews and box office reporting. In a Vogue interview, she said reading reviews of her films “would send me into a psychosis of some sort.”
The actor similarly avoids checking box office updates when her team sends them, explaining: “I don’t want it to become a numbers thing.”
ShowBiz Take
The most striking part of the “Klara and the Sun” response is the 50-point gap between its critics and audience scores. Waititi’s Instagram post makes clear which measure he considers more meaningful, even as the theatrical numbers present a separate challenge for the film.
His comments are not a measured disagreement with individual reviews; they are a broad rejection of professional criticism and its relevance. By invoking “Jojo Rabbit,” Waititi also framed the current backlash as part of a pattern in which critics and the audiences he values do not necessarily arrive at the same verdict.
Still, the 78% audience score and the movie’s opening-weekend performance represent two different forms of public response. Waititi has chosen to spotlight the favorable one, while Sony’s decision to scale back the theatrical footprint reflects the difficult commercial start.
For “Klara and the Sun,” that divide now sits at the center of the story: a director openly dismissing a 28% critical score, a star determined not to be consumed by reviews or revenue, and an audience rating offering the film’s most encouraging counterpoint.