You do not have to ask everyone

A young filmmaker in Amman has just finished her first short film, and at the family lunch an uncle leans across the table to tell her what he would have done differently.

He means well. He also has never made a film, does not watch the kind she makes, and is speaking about something that is already finished.

The instinct is to listen anyway. We are taught that criticism is a gift and that only the fragile refuse it. So we nod, we take notes in our heads, and we carry the uncle's views home as if they were a verdict.

But an opinion is only useful if three things are true at once.

The person has to be good at it. Most people can tell you whether they liked something. Very few can tell you why, in a way you could act on.

The person has to be someone the work was made for. Her film was made for a particular audience, people who sit through quiet endings and do not need the plot explained. The uncle is not that audience, and pleasing him would mean making a different film for a different room.

And the work has to still be open. A comment on the edit is useful in the edit. A comment on a finished film can only make the maker feel worse.

Remove any one of the three, and what arrives is not feedback. It is noise with good intentions.

She can thank him warmly and pass the bread. Being polite to an opinion is not the same as being obliged to use it.