Mostly, the film is an elegy for lives lost in vain. And forgotten. As much as I can't stand the phrase "life-affirming," The Witnesses is anything but depressing.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 21, 2024

'The Witnesses' is a film executed with some skill by André Téchiné, but I don't see that it has enough narrative force to provoke any kind of emotion in me. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 7, 2020

All this prepares you for a sucker punch of things that do matter...

| May 22, 2020

Though the specter of HIV/AIDS looms over the second part of the film once Manu is diagnosed, it wisely doesn't take over the latter part of it. Perhaps this is due to the fact that it was a few years before the epidemic first hit France.

| Sep 15, 2019

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 18, 2011

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 17, 2011

The Witnesses has an emotional maturity that adds richness to its social observation.

| Apr 28, 2011

Best when it turns from bed-hopping into a docudrama, but its effort to personalize the AIDS crisis is not emotionally convincing as the characters lose their individuality.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 14, 2008

Excitingly convoluted.

Full Review | Oct 18, 2008

Techine's graceful, forceful drama has the tact not to play narrative games with its subject.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 18, 2008

| Original Score: B | Oct 18, 2008

A somber look back, and for Americans, a view from somewhere else of a time that might have been just recently forgotten.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 18, 2008

André Téchiné's film features a strong ensemble cast. The film pulls no punches in its depiction of lives in crisis.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 16, 2008

Lots of gab, a little flesh flashing, more gab, and not much action or momentum. French Kissing, Brokeback Mountain style.

| Jun 21, 2008

The first 80 minutes or so are really good, but then the movie goes on for about a half hour longer than it needs to.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 18, 2008

A welcome addition to a legion of AIDS related movies and the French perspective, so different from our own, never fails to intrigue

| May 22, 2008

As in real life, often the main crisis morphs into a continuance that has no slam-bang conclusion. Rather, we just see a small hope that awakes to experience another sunrise.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 19, 2008

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.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 16, 2008

A rambling but often affecting account of the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 3, 2008

Unyieldingly pleasant and way too fussy for its own good... so sunny and polite it makes Rent look like Cruising.

Full Review | Mar 17, 2008