About as quintessentially American a text as one could hope for in today’s divided union.
— Carson Lund (Slant Magazine)
Its unclassifiable construction […] mirrors its subjects’ desires to kick back against a perceived controlling force descending upon them from all sides.[…]
Given the current rise of Trumpism nationwide, it’s tempting to tie exactly these kinds folks to the big orange bandwagon, but what’s important about Minervini’s film politically is that he links this brand of American revanchism not to a particular candidate but to a geographically predicated and economically defined ideology of isolation simmering unto paranoia.
— Jeff Reichert (Reverse Shot)
At certain moments in The Other Side, [the] authenticity is pure indeed, as when Uncle Jim (James Lee Miller), a toothless alcoholic, reads to Mark a trite poem that’s stuck to his fridge. It’s the kind of anonymous, spirit-lifting schmaltz inscribed over stock images and shared on Facebook, but the way Jim breaks into tears before swigging direct from his bottle of liquor shows how meaningful a cliché can be to someone who has little else to live for.
— Michael Pattison (Slant Magazine)
Synopsis: In an invisible territory at the margins of society, at the border between anarchy and illegality, lives a wounded community that is trying to respond to a threat: of being forgotten by political institutions and having their rights as citizens trampled. Disarmed veterans, taciturn adolescents, drug addicts trying to escape addiction through love, ex-special forces soldiers still at war with the world, floundering young women and future mothers, and old people who have not lost their desire to live. Through this hidden pocket of humanity, the door opens to the abyss of today's America.