Started from the middle

Early one afternoon, in the summer of 1995, Paul W.S. Anderson sat alone in his small unfurnished flat in London, waiting on the mail. The 30-year-old director’s latest picture arrived in theatres in America that weekend, and the studio told Anderson they would deliver to him copies of the movie’s opening reviews.

They soon appeared by courier. One envelope bore the title “positive.” The other read “negative.” The envelopes were exactly the same size. Two days later, though, Anderson had a funny feeling: he couldn’t remember a single positive thing anyone had written about Mortal Kombat, but by contrast, could recall every drubbing. “I think that’s pretty much human nature,” Anderson reflects 20 years later.

Anderson decided that he needn’t endure this agony, and swore off criticism evermore. He’s hardly alone in his dismissal of criticism. Brett Ratner – who is, to be fair, without the faintest trace of the panache of Anderson – staked out an anti-review position last week during a speech at the Sun Valley Film Festival. He called Rotten Tomatoes “the worst thing about movie cul ture today,” and objected to the effect a negative score can have on the perception of an otherwise perfectly likeable film.

“The Rotten Tomatoes score was so low on Batman v Superman,” he said of the film he produced. “I think it put a cloud over a movie. It’s hurting the business. It’s getting people not to see a movie.”

Anderson told me about a colleague of his, another English director whom he declined to identify by name, whose intolerance for reviews is a product of deep scarring. “She’s a really good director and she’s got much better reviews than I have ever got,” Anderson says. But one bad review struck deep. “I never read reviews,” she confided to Anderson. “Because the only review I ever remember is the critic who said I’m ‘spiralling downward from mediocrity.’ I mean, my god. It just killed me. I started at mediocre, and I went down.”

It’s easy to sympathize: the critic, judging imperiously, has the power to mortify and maim, and the artist who submits his or her work for consideration puts a great deal on the line. It surely isn’t pleasant, finding yourself proclaimed never good and getting worse; such things do tend to hurt. On the other hand, I suggest to Anderson, it’s a pretty good line. “I know,” he laughs. “She ‘started at mediocre and got worse.’ That’s not bad.”