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The Witnesses
The Witnesses Image
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Metascore
75 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 15 Critics What's this?

User Score
6.0 out of 10

Mixed or average reviews- based on 4 Ratings

Your Score
10 out of 10
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  • Summary: Paris, summer 1984. Manu arrives in Paris, where he shares a cheap hotel room with his sister Julie. He strikes up a joyous, chaste friendship with Adrien, a wealthy doctor in his early fifties who opens Manu’s eyes to a different way of life. On a trip out on a speedboat, Adrien introduces Manu to Sarah and Mehdi, a young couple who have just had their first child. An unplanned love affair and the onset of the AIDS epidemic - seen by the media and in the collective imagination as a shameful, modern-day plague - upset the ordered tranquility of their individual destinies. Each of them becomes a protagonist in - and witness to - a contemporary tragedy, where those who don’t die may emerge stronger, but not undamaged. (Strand Releasing) … Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 15
  3. Negative: 0 out of 15
  1. Chicago Tribune
    Reviewed by: Michael Phillips
    88
    The Witnesses may be schematic, but it lets each character live and breathe. The film captures a time and place that seems very distant now.
  2. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Ken Fox
    88
    Techine's unwillingness to soften his characters reflects a rare honesty about human nature that's rarely seen in movies, particularly movies about fatal illnesses, and his film is an engaging and particularly French character study.
  3. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: David Wiegand
    50
    A kind of film opera without music.

See all 15 Critic Reviews

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Trailers

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