Diego Batlle Otroscines.com Aug 8, 2023 3.5/5

The movie is hard and raw, and the courage and pungency of the story are commendable, though at times, some situations seem manipulative and the explicitness can be shocking and sensationalist. [Full review in Spanish]

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Miguel Martín Maestro El antepenúltimo mohicano Feb 8, 2021 4/5

[Director Roberto Minervini] demonstrates a clear and deep knowledge of the winding swamps through which he passes... there is no respite. [Full review in Spanish]

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C.J. Prince Way Too Indie Jun 3, 2019

It's a blending of reality and fiction that can feel both exploitative and exciting in the way it brings out a sympathetic, human side to these people that gets beneath their grimy, undesirable surface.

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Steve Erickson Gay City News Feb 15, 2018

The film runs the risk of European condescension toward poor Americans, most of whom are never going to have a chance to see the film, but it largely dodges that bullet.

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Indra Arriaga Anchorage Press Jun 21, 2017

The Other Side is meant to be a documentary but sometimes feels like a well-crafted melodrama.

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Peter Keough Boston Globe Aug 31, 2016

Look away at your own peril.

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Laura Clifford Reeling Reviews Aug 22, 2016 B+

Cowriter (with Denise Ping Lee)/director Roberto Minervini has found a forgotten pocket of America that exemplifies the rage evident in the 2016 presidential race and, at least in the section devoted to Mark, it is a surprisingly complex picture.

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Ray Pride Newcity Jul 21, 2016

It's like Larry Clark with stakes, with a beating heart, or Harmony Korine with candor instead of vaudeville. Whatever the mix of truth to fiction, a sense of authenticity pervades each gesture.

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Dmitry Samarov Chicago Reader Jul 21, 2016

Minervini has captured a segment of American society too often ignored and mocked, but sometimes he's overtaken by the urge to romanticize decrepitude.

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Nathanael Hood The Young Folks Jul 14, 2016 9/10

It's the little details that hit the hardest in Roberto Minervini's new documentary The Other Side-an exploration of extreme poverty in northern Louisiana ...

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Josef Braun Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Alberta) Jun 30, 2016

If you want to get a sense of that broader spectrum -- and of some of the most exciting, unnerving filmmaking being done in the United States -- see The Other Side. And come to understand just how apt its title is.

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Michael Atkinson In These Times Jun 22, 2016

Minervini's movie is a reality show, but one busy challenging our presumptions, not validating our isolation.

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Robert Horton HeraldNet (Everett, WA) Jun 17, 2016 3/4

I acknowledge this film's power, and still feel uneasy about it -- and unsure of its point. But there's no question that in many scenes, it captures remarkable details.

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Kate Taylor Globe and Mail Jun 10, 2016 2/4

In the end, the power of Minervini's pseudo-fiction gives way to a much blander version of pseudo-reality.

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Peter Debruge Variety May 20, 2016

Miraculously [manages] to find a serene beauty amid so much desperation and squalor, honoring its characters without letting them off easy.

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Wendy Ide Screen International May 20, 2016

There is a compassion in this filmmaking that is markedly lacking in America's attitude towards the people it pushes to its outer fringes.

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Jordan Mintzer The Hollywood Reporter May 20, 2016

It's ultimately hard to tell if the movie is trying to render its subjects with some humanity or otherwise if it's taking advantage of all these poor, beautiful losers.

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Godfrey Cheshire RogerEbert.com May 20, 2016 3/4

An immersive, almost harrowingly naturalistic plunge into the lives of marginal Louisianans obsessed with guns, drugs and belligerent resentments.

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Glenn Kenny New York Times May 20, 2016

Whatever genre it belongs to, "The Other Side" is powerful and disturbing.

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Benjamin Mercer Brooklyn Magazine May 20, 2016

A portrait, at once sensitively rendered and exceedingly raw, of boiling-over discontent-and the self-medication that seems all but required to manage it.

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