I once went out with a woman who was highly steeped in film criticism and such. I think she volunteered as dramaturg at a theater company or something like that. We watched "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" together, and I thought it was the most dismal, dispiriting, horrible movie I'd ever seen. Afterward she opened my eyes to how a critic would interpret it, the symbolism, the cultural currents, etc. I hadn't picked up on any of that. I still hate that movie. But I guess I can see a bit better how, if you're in on it, it can be fun to pick things apart in that certain way. It's like a secret language that only you and a few others speak. There's nothing quite like speaking your native tongue when living in a foreign land.
I think a lot of the professional critics are like that. We don't speak their secret language. We commoners are the foreign land they must survive in. They're having a conversation among themselves. It's not for us.
At least, that's what it's become.