[3] It was later intended for the album's follow-up EP, Emotion: Side B, but was then slated for release with Ballerina after Jepsen signed on for the film and felt the song was fitting for the story.

[10] Hayden Manders of Nylon describes "Cut to the Feeling" as a "masterclass" of the "best, sweetest pop music" today, celebrating the "possibility of big love" with a "chorus that blasts off to stars and doesn't let up for the rest of the song's duration".

[11] It was featured as Pitchfork's "Best New Track", with Laura Snapes describing it as "bombastic and gaudy" while praising it for being "distinctly Jepsen, her coaxing vocal creakiness convincing her paramour to stop denying what they want and just fucking go for it with her".

[12] Rolling Stone wrote Jepsen "saved 2017 with her bracing rejoinder to Xanax-pop malaise", and that her "boisterous vocal [sic] adds extra urgency to this jump-along anthem's much-needed e•mo•tional rescue".

[13] Slant Magazine wrote the single is her best since "Call Me Maybe", adding that it "delivers breathless, syncopated vocals over a measured handclap beat before the whole thing erupts into its euphoric hook.

As a clock positioned in the corner counts down from 1 minute and 32 seconds, Jepsen is seen having her make-up applied, posing with her team outdoors, making coffee and playing around the studio.

She then arrives at the filming set and the clip launches into the black-and-white performance-style music video, which sees Jepsen's singing the last chorus of the song into a microphone, surrounded by her band.