Contributing editor LEILA LATIF has something to say…
Putting art out into the world takes courage, and in some ways, every film review should come with a disclaimer that regardless of quality, ‘They made a film, and that’s great!’
As critics, we seek to help people engage with cinema more meaningfully and to champion hidden gems, but I couldn’t live with the guilt of encouraging people to fork out for a miserable time at the cinema. Even if everyone involved was genuinely trying their best.
Even so, it doesn’t feel great to hear about Kumail Nanjiani’s experience with the poor reviews of Eternals (2021), telling Michael Rosenbaum on his podcast: ‘The reviews were bad and I was too aware of it. I was reading every review and checking too much.’ His wife, Emily V. Gordon, who he co-wrote the glowingly reviewed The Big Sick with, is a trained therapist, and Nanjiani revealed that she encouraged him into counselling. ‘Emily says that I do have trauma from it,’ he said.
The idea of my own two-star review of Eternals (admittedly one where I said Nanjiani was the highlight) hurting him is horrible to consider, and a successful actor’s bank account and access to therapy doesn’t shield them from mental-health struggles. And yet, there I was a week after his podcast, reviewing another Hollywood movie, saying an actor was ‘upstaged by a bad wig’.
In my defence (not that anyone could defend that wig), if we are going to be effusive with our praise – and I consider myself a generous film critic – we have to be able to call out when audiences should give a film a wide berth. We do this work because we love cinema; we think it can change lives and make us better, more empathetic people, and if people are disappointed time and time again by a trip to a multiplex, they will stop going and the whole industry will wither. But there are (self-imposed) rules around a bad review. For one thing, I wouldn’t write anything sexist, racist or ableist. I approach every film in good faith and want it to be a masterpiece, and I don’t hold a film’s low budget against it.
But really bad reviews a
