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Taika Waititi has called critics of his latest film “sad lost souls” who failed to realize their dreams of becoming artists, after his adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s film. Klara and the sun received a series of scathing reviews.
The Oscar-winning director lashed out at critics on social media, with an image that highlighted the discrepancy between the film’s critics’ score and audience responses.
“I haven’t read a review of anything aimed at me or my peers in almost 15 years. But I listen to people,” Waititi wrote. “So this Halloween, let’s spare a thought for those sad lost souls who couldn’t realize their dream of becoming artists, and so settled down and became critics. The same people who also hated Jojo Rabbit.”
In his 2019 black comedy Jojo RabbitWaititi played an imaginary version of Adolf Hitler who befriends a young boy growing up in Nazi Germany. The film faced some questions at the time over the use of humor and satire to combat Nazism, but it was generally well received, with an 81 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and winning Waititi an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
He ended his message with Klara and the Sun reviews with the words: “Irrelevant. Disconnected. Obsolete. Trash.”
Klara and the sunset in a dystopian future where androids are sold as companions to humans, stars Jenna Ortega as Klara, an artificial friend whose life changes when she is purchased by Josie (Mia Tharia), a teenager whose health deteriorates after undergoing a controversial genetic enhancement procedure.
As Klara tries to understand the human world and the meaning of love, she becomes increasingly devoted to Josie and sets out to help her, all while struggling with grief and tension within the teenager’s family.
The film received particularly harsh reviews following its premiere at the BFI London Film Festival earlier in October, and currently sits at a score of 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to an audience rating of 78 percent.
The IndependentChief film critic Clarisse Loughrey gave the film two stars, describing the film as “both a betrayal of Ishiguro’s calm, meditative vision and a poor imitation of Waititi’s own, pre-Marvel work.”
“To take Ishiguro’s story and steal the incisive, observational nature of its central character is to inhabit this strange, prescient world while keeping our eyes firmly fixed on the ground. The book was about who we fundamentally are, today and tomorrow. The film is about the power of love and friendship. This seems like quite a downgrade,” she wrote.
The GuardianPeter Bradshaw’s Peter Bradshaw called the film a “sentimental, plodding mess”, while The telegraph‘s Tim Robey suspected that “it might be the most infantile film of the year”.
Speaking about the challenge of adapting the novel while maintaining his own style, Waititi said Variety last month: “The book is not funny. There are humorous moments in it, just the way Klara misinterprets things, or just certain ways she sees the world, and I think as a reader you go, ‘Oh, that’s sweet and innocent and funny.'”
He continued, “I wanted to make sure I brought my own tone that I usually give to my films, but I didn’t want to play too much with the overall tone of how the book reads, because it’s really beautiful, this book.
“It’s, you know, a slow burn and on the surface there’s not much going on. There’s just so much bubbling underneath.”
Klara and the sun had a disappointing theatrical run in the United States, earning $701,059 in its opening weekend and another $145,000 in its second weekend. Made on a reported budget of $20 million, the film grossed approximately $1.74 million worldwide, according to Box office mojo.
Sony had originally planned to release it in around 1,900 US theaters, but reduced that number to 880 ahead of its opening weekend after early reviews began to decline.
The film’s planned theatrical release in Spain has also been canceled, according to the Spanish publication. Entertainment consoleswho said the decision followed the film’s poor box office performance and negative reviews.
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