The riskiest and most emotionally stunning scenes in Topsy-Turvy come in the last twelve minutes, when what had been a rollicking entertainment metamorphoses into an expression of extreme melancholy and loss. […] The D’Oyly Carte company’s alcoholic soubrette, Leonora Braham (Shirley Henderson) […] is left alone onstage, singing the lovely “The Sun Whose Rays” in a voice that mixes heartbreak and triumph. It’s as if all along there has been an entirely different film taking place beneath the one we’ve been watching.
— Amy Taubin (Criterion)
A film about artists who delude themselves into thinking their latest project is a reinvention, when really they have just done what they have always done, even if the end result feels different. […] History has a way of gilding art that has survived the test of time, even if it was initially believed to be a trifle or lowbrow.
— Brian Eggert (Deep Focus Review)