Taika Waititi Has Words for Critics, and Halloween Was the Perfect Backdrop

Few filmmakers know the sting of a lopsided reception quite like Taika Waititi right now. The director spent years building a reputation as one of the most charming and unpredictable voices in blockbuster cinema, and his latest project arrived with plenty of baggage attached.

Sony reportedly held ‘Klara and the Sun’ for more than 2 years before it finally reached theaters. Production wrapped back in April 2024, which left a long stretch of silence before audiences got a look at Ishiguro’s story on the big screen.

That silence ended in October, and it did not end gently. The film premiered at the BFI London Film Festival and opened to a weak 25% on Rotten Tomatoes based on its first 12 reviews, and that figure later slid to 20%, marking the lowest score of his directing career. Several London reviews were one-star pans.

Now Waititi has answered the pile-on, and he did not hold back. According to Variety, the filmmaker took aim at the people reviewing his work, describing them as “sad lost souls who couldn’t achieve their dreams of becoming artists.” He framed it as a Halloween message, saying he hasn’t read a review of anything aimed at him or his peers in almost 15 years, but still listens to “the people.”

He then widened the target, lumping the same critics in with those who also hated ‘Jojo Rabbit’ and labeling them “irrelevant,” “out of touch” and “obsolete.” It is a pointed callback, since ‘Jojo Rabbit’ is the film that earned him his Academy Award. The jab works as both a defense of ‘Klara and the Sun’ and a reminder of who got the last laugh the last time critics doubted him.

The criticism he is brushing off has been fairly consistent. Most critics felt Waititi’s playful style clashed with the sad tone of Ishiguro’s book, and one trailer-era report noted that Waititi himself had said his instinct to write a typical ‘Taika film’ full of robot humor didn’t work while he was drafting. The tension between his signature whimsy and the novel’s melancholy seems to be exactly where many reviewers landed.

Not everyone has been so harsh, though. Some early viewers on social media called the film a return to form for Waititi, which suggests the gap between critics and audiences could be wider than the Rotten Tomatoes number implies. Screen Daily’s David Calhoun gave it a fresh review, praising its performances and visuals while still noting the story lost something by moving away from Klara’s point of view.

Still, the pushback has not let up since the film hit theaters. One New Zealand critic wrote that the film isn’t as bad as critics say, it’s worse, and that was after attending the home-country premiere. Waititi’s Halloween remarks feel like a direct response to a mood that has been building for weeks.

This is also not the first time his work has divided people. ‘Next Goal Wins’ landed at 46% from critics, and ‘Thor: Love and Thunder’ was another stumble in the eyes of many reviewers. Against that backdrop, his latest comments read less like a one-off outburst and more like a filmmaker finally tired of the conversation.

Whether the “in the bin” line wins him sympathy or just fuels another round of debate remains to be seen. Critics rarely take being called failed artists well, and the internet tends to enjoy a feud. For now, ‘Klara and the Sun’ is in theaters, and its director has made it clear exactly how he feels about the people judging it.