Avis Metacritic

Sparked by the actors' powerful performances, Arnold's moral absolutism and Furtwängler's lofty aestheticism make for a dramatically compelling clash.

Ronald Harwood's screenplay, based on his stage play, brings an impressive range of moral and political issues into play. The acting is also strong.

The deep drawback of Taking Sides is that it forgets to be interested in music. [8 September 2003, p. 100]

Its soul rests in Skarsgard's performance, a powerful mixture of buttoned-down anger and personal disappointment that combines the filmmaker's self-questioning with the real-life character's conflict.

Characters do little more than run around the same track incessantly, leaving us waiting for revelations that never arrive.

A compelling look at a vexa tious question, Taking Sides is, at times, hamstrung by its own ambiguity.

Taking Sides has a padded-out, stagebound quality that is anything but lyrical. And Szabó, a Hungarian best known for "Mephisto" and "Colonel Redl," is not at his best here.

Flawed but fascinating.

Taking Sides is really no less simplistic than "Sunshine," but its predecessor succeeded because of its length and scope. Taking Sides stays rooted in one place and one discussion, and never gets anywhere.

The sides to consider in Taking Sides are all but obscured by cinematic pomposity at best, Holocaust porn at worst.