Topsy-Turvy
October Films | Release Date: December 17, 1999 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
90
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
1
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
A triumph. Read full review
100
USA TodayMike Clark
One of the year's best movies and certainly its most delightful screen surprise. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
Topsy-Turvy reminds us that, in any age, creative expression is at once the most personal and most communal of enterprises. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
It is one of the year's best films. Read full review
100
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Brilliantly acted, sumptuously filmed, and overflowing with mellifluous music. Read full review
100
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
A tribute to anyone who ever picked up a score, a pen, a paintbrush or a grease pencil - or a movie camera. Read full review
100
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
A masterful film about the magic of performance and the foibles of the artists behind it. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Some movies delight you. Some stimulate and provoke. Some enlighten and inform. And some simply hand you a rousing good time-- does all of that and more. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleBob Graham
Part of the appeal of Topsy-Turvy is its generosity about human folly and shortcomings. Its wistfulness is very touching. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
It's as full a movie as you can imagine -- exhausting and exhilarating and continually fascinating. Read full review
90
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Thoroughly researched, unobtrusively upholstered, this beautifully assured entertainment about Victorian England is a string of delights. Read full review
90
L.A. WeeklyF. X. Feeney
We never seem to be looking at actors, but at people; never at scenes, but at life unrehearsed. Read full review
90
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Filled with delicious backstage drama, and superb actors reveling in the opportunity to play their 19th-century counterparts. Read full review
90
Film.comErnest Hardy
Leigh and his solid cast make sure that inside jokes translate to a broad audience, and that their rendering of the back-stage drama is smart, engrossing and often very funny. Read full review
90
SlateDavid Edelstein
A monument to process -- to the minutiae of making art -- Topsy-Turvy leaves you upside down and breathless. Read full review
90
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Not only Mike Leigh's strongest film since "Naked" but a true show-making epic. Read full review
90
VarietyDeborah Young
This beautifully crafted and lively romp around the 1880s stage world should enjoy its longest life as a vid classic. Read full review
90
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The year's most beguilling and touching surprise. Bravo.
90
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
One of those films that create a mix of erudition, pageantry and delectable acting opportunities, much as "Shakespeare in Love." Read full review
90
Washington PostDesson Thomson
A 160 minute work of sustained brilliance and delicacy. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Wildly entertaining, "Shakespeare in Love" minus the Bard and the babe, but with substantive style to burn. Read full review
88
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
A hive of broad, brilliant performances. Read full review
88
San Francisco ExaminerWesley Morris
Mike Leigh's great big, superbly performed homage to the creative process. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
A joyous, amazingly detailed paean to imagination and personal expression that dares -- and succeeds -- to illustrate one of the most mysterious enigmas of all: the creative process. Read full review
88
New York PostJonathan Foreman
Revels in the sensual pleasure of music while capturing brilliantly the tension that grips any theater company before the curtain goes up. Read full review
83
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
At 160 minutes, it's a bit long and uneventful for anyone who is not at least a moderate fan of the musicals. Read full review
81
Mr. ShowbizMichael Atkinson
Topsy-Turvy is flawless, borne along by a savagely witty screenplay that Leigh directs like the gears of a clock. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesKenneth Turan
A bit longer than it might be, a bit more attached to its digressions than we might wish. But the length does encourage the feeling that we've been through the whole creative process with Gilbert and Sullivan . Read full review
70
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
A loving, gently funny and slightly claustrophobic tribute to theatrical life. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeJay Carr
In the end, it's the snatches of music, mangled as it is, and the mechanics of staging it, in the absence of Leigh's usual raw, urgent psychic collisions, that keep Topsy-Turvy from seeming merely a gorgeous wax museum. Read full review
50
TNT RoughCutDon Kaye
But there's so much more of the very, very British Topsy-Turvy that just seems so stuffy and inert.
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