This article is about The Witnesses, a French Film. For article on the band Sam Butera and The Witnesses, see Sam Butera

The Witnesses () is a 2007 French drama film directed by André Téchiné, starring Michel Blanc, Sami Bouajila, Emmanuelle Béart and Johan Libéreau. The film is set in Paris in 1984, the lives of a closely knit group of friends is disrupted with the sudden outbreak of AIDS epidemic. They are witnesses to how happiness has changed.

Plot

It is the summer of 1984 in Paris. Sarah, a well-to-do writer of children’s books, and her working-class husband, Mehdi, a hard-nosed police inspector of North African descent, are confronting some marital problems after the recent arrival of their first child. Sarah, stumbling over a bout of writer's block, has little maternal instinct towards their newborn baby, whose cries she tunes out with earplugs while she works. Her husband despairs when she neglects the child, does what he can to fill in, and sometimes parks the child with his parents. The couple have an open marriage and both are allowed to take outside lovers in a “don’t ask, don’t tell” arrangement that seems to work, although not without tensions.

Meanwhile, Sarah’s close friend Adrien, a homely, middle-aged gay doctor, prowls a popular cruising ground, where he meets Manu, a carefree young man. Manu is not sexually attracted to Adrien and they do not have sex, but strike an emotional friendship. Manu is happy with the friendship and becomes Adrien’s companion and his student of life’s finer things. Wildly in love with his shallow, narcissistic protégé, Adrien is shrewd enough not to push too hard, but there is an element of masochism in his abject devotion.