Pythonic JSON encode/decode of object containing dictionary instance variables

Question

Let's say I have a python class that has instance variables that are dictionaries. I'm new-ish to JSON and looking for the most pythonic way to encode/decode lists of these objects to/from .json files.

I'm curious if there is a clever way to use an object_hook to decode things that contain dictionaries as the typical encoder works inside->out as I understand. I guess I could encode the dictionary into an ugly list of 2-item lists (??) and then handle that with the decoder?

Here's what I've got now in a reproducible example. It works, but I suspect that it could be improved. Curious if there is a way to handle this with custom decoder or object_hook or other pythonic approach

import json
from typing import Dict

class Critic():
    def __init__(self, name: str, reviews: Dict[str, int]):
        self.name = name
        self.reviews = reviews

    @staticmethod
    def encode(obj):
        return {"name": obj.name, "reviews": obj.reviews}

    @staticmethod
    def decode(obj):
        # ??? Can it be done ???
        pass

    def __repr__(self):
        return f'{self.name}, {self.reviews}'

x1 = Critic('Bob', {'Jaws':4, 'Star Wars':5})
x2 = Critic('Jim', {'Dune':3, 'Top Gun 2':4})

data = json.dumps([x1, x2], default=Critic.encode, indent=2)
#print(data)

# load it, then parse the result "manually"
retrieved = json.loads(data)
res = []
for item in retrieved:
    res.append(Critic(**item))

print(res)

Yields (as expected):

[Bob, {'Jaws': 4, 'Star Wars': 5}, Jim, {'Dune': 3, 'Top Gun 2': 4}]