The Witnesses (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:45
Fresh:38
Rotten:7
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: French director André Téchiné successfully weaves five gripping stories in an engaging and realistic film about the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
Theatrical Release:2007
Synopsis: Legendary French film director André Téchiné goes back to 1980s Paris in the tender, heartbreaking THE WITNESSES. Emmanuelle Beart (8 WOMEN) stars as Sarah, a children's book author who has just... [More]
Starring: Michel Blanc, Emmanuelle Beart, Sami Bouajila, Julie Depardieu
Director: André Téchiné
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Reviews for The Witnesses
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 5/10 |
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. Full Review |
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Téchiné films Johan Libéreau, who plays Manu, the fresh-faced young boy coming of age in The Witnesses, with the sort of discretion that gives mystery and dignity to human beauty. Full Review |
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Click to read the article Full Review |
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Excitingly convoluted. Full Review |
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3/4 |
A somber look back, and for Americans, a view from somewhere else of a time that might have been just recently forgotten. Full Review |
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3.5/4 |
Techine’s graceful, forceful drama has the tact not to play narrative games with its subject. Full Review |
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3/4 |
André Téchiné's film features a strong ensemble cast. The film pulls no punches in its depiction of lives in crisis. Full Review |
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Lots of gab, a little flesh flashing, more gab, and not much action or momentum. French Kissing, Brokeback Mountain style. Full Review |
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2.5/4 |
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. Full Review |
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A welcome addition to a legion of AIDS related movies and the French perspective, so different from our own, never fails to intrigue Full Review |
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3.5/5 |
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. Full Review |
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3/4 |
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. Full Review |
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3/5 |
A rambling but often affecting account of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Full Review |
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Unyieldingly pleasant and way too fussy for its own good... so sunny and polite it makes Rent look like Cruising. Full Review |
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3/4 |
It becomes a movie about figuring out how to live a full life, and The Witnesses is necessarily a bittersweet one, since so many people who came of age in the '80s never had a chance. Full Review |
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3/4 |
Director Andre Techine's story is one of subtle emotional tones that require the most of an actor, and the cast is uniformly compelling. Full Review |
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The explosion of AIDS is the film's sobering heart, but the manner in which it affects those who witness it makes the story universal and, through each person's small, life-affirming reactions, hopeful. Full Review |
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In The Witnesses, [director] Techine levels his gaze on the '80s, an era of seeming innocence, perhaps license, and one in which biological freedom has led to a loose, even sloppily knit fabric of humanity. Full Review |
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Andre Techine is a master at taking life experiences and stripping them of sentimentality, leaving us with only the bare-bones honesty of relationships and desire. Full Review |
CommentLatest News for The Witnesses
January 31, 2008:
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This week at the movies, we've got creepy visions (The Eye, starring Jessica Alba), haunted romances (Over Her Dead Body, starring Paul Rudd and Eva Longoria Parker), woodland... More...
January 10, 2008:
Lots of gab, a little flesh flashing, more gab, and not much action or momentum. French Kissing, Brokeback Mountain style. 
More...
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