CAN I GET A WITNESS?
Starring: Keira Jang, Joel Oulette, and Sandra Oh
Director: Ann Marie Fleming
NICK
I’m not being hyperbolic when I say the concept of Can I Get a Witness? is excellent. A live-action animated hybrid about a world devoid of electricity, where people are only allowed to live until the age of 50, is fascinating. Unfortunately, the film completely wastes that concept by delivering a meandering plot without anything interesting to say until halfway through the film, at which point I'd already checked out. Even the animation is sorely underused, making me question the decision to include it. An idea this cool shouldn’t lead to a film so boring. It was easily one of my bigger disappointments of TIFF 2024.
KATIE
Can I Get a Witness presents some interesting ideas, but didn’t quite work for me. It explores a post-climate-disaster world where people must take their own lives at age 50, and how this impacts a mother and daughter, but I couldn’t get on board with the idea that average people are the ones who must make huge sacrifices to preserve the environment. There are hand-drawn looking animations that are lovely, but don’t add anything, and by the time it had explained the ins and outs of the dystopian society, it had lost my interest, before ending quite suddenly.
This film was reviewed by Nick as part of Bitesize Breakdown's coverage of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.