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The Witnesses
Metascore
75 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 15 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 15
  3. Negative: 0 out of 15
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  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. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    88
    This is the epidemic from love's point of view, a story as much about how the disease can ravage the heart as it does the body. It is also Téchiné's best film since 1998's superb "Alice et Martin," and 1994's even better "Wild Reeds."
  4. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Lisa Schwarzbaum
    83
    What the characters in The Witnesses -- and we, the audience -- pay testimony to in André Téchiné's urgent, compassionate, and ultimately optimistic French drama are the toll the epidemic has rung, and the responsibility of the living to choose life.
  5. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Nathan Lee
    80
    The Witnesses forms a magnificent trilogy with "Son Frère" (2003), Patrice Chéreau's devastating account of fraternal devotion in the face of death, and the amazing, acerbic "Before I Forget," a brooding and bitter tale of survival coming soon from Jacques Nolot, here lending an iconic cameo as the proprietor of Manu's hooker hotel.
  6. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    80
    The Witnesses may frustrate those who prefer movies that tell clear-cut stories in which hard lessons are learned. But in the director's farsighted vision of life, the ground under our feet is always shifting. As time pulls us forward, the shocks of the past are absorbed and the pain recedes. In its light-handed way, The Witnesses is profound.
  7. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    75
    The Witnesses doesn't pay off with a great operatic pinnacle, but it's better that way. Better to show people we care about facing facts they care desperately about, without the consolation of plot mechanics.
  8. New York Post
    Reviewed by: V.A. Musetto
    75
    They should hand out a score card with every ticket to The Witnesses to help viewers keep track of who's sleeping with whom.
  9. New York Magazine (Vulture)
    Reviewed by: David Edelstein
    70
    Excitingly convoluted.
  10. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Carina Chocano
    70
    The tone of The Witnesses is one of randomness. This makes for an ambling narrative, but an atmospheric one that feels authentic despite its unlikely character pairings.
  11. Variety
    Reviewed by: Deborah Young
    70
    Despite its grim subject, the powerful storytelling projects the strongly affirmative message that it's a miracle to be alive and bear witness to those who did not survive. This memorable film, one of Techine's best, is in no way limited to gay viewers.
  12. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: John Anderson
    70
    A timely reminder of AIDS; we've largely forgotten we're in the midst of a crisis. But the movie isn't all cautionary, or at all preachy.
  13. The New Yorker
    Reviewed by: David Denby
    70
    Téchiné is unusually adroit at manipulating a complex set of relations within a very mixed group of people. This movie is easy to take--chatty and sociable, with a brightly lit, even sunshiny gloss and an open sensuality.
  14. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Steve Erickson
    70
    This transcends the usual stodginess of period pieces with crucial historical testimony, delivered with verve.
  15. San Francisco Chronicle
    Reviewed by: David Wiegand
    50
    A kind of film opera without music.
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