TIFF 2024: Can I Get a Witness? Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Can I Get a Witness? is a Canadian film set in a post-apocalyptic world where human beings can only live to the age of fifty before willingly submitting to death to help contribute to keeping the global population under control. It features the story of a young girl named Kiah (Jang), who is starting a new job as an end-of-life witness and goes around with a young charmer, Daniel (Oulette), to ensure that citizens are doing their duty once they turn fifty.

Most of the actors here are relatively unknown, aside from the great Sandra Oh, who plays Kiah’s mother, Ellie. The premise is interesting from the jump, with constant references and reflections on a past world where electricity and food seemed to run short, and climate change ran rampant. Confined to the wilderness, Ellie and Kiah rely on their harvesting skills to get by in a world where most people keep to themselves, focusing on agriculture and for entertainment, the simple things in life.

Kiah’s simple pleasures come in the form of drawing, and her artistry has given her the opportunity to work as an end-of-life witness, documenting the ceremonies. Her drawings and director Ann Marie Fleming’s background in directing animation allowed for some animated sequences to cross over into this live action film, as some of Kiah’s drawings come to life on the screen. While they don’t add much to the film as a whole, there is a sense of innocence that they bring to the film.

Despite the film’s unique premise, the screenplay has very little interest in actually exploring it. Much of it is spent following our leads as they wander from ceremony to ceremony, discussing the job or the reason why the world must be the way it is. It often comes across as sappy, or cringe worthy even. There is no problem with on the nose filmmaking, but this story could’ve used something more especially given the fact that it’s crawling near two hours in runtime despite not much happening throughout. In the end, one can’t help but feel like there were so many missed opportunities when it comes to the different routes this could have gone and the different ways this story could have been told.

With the small cast and limited plot development, the film can be quite a drag at times, with several lulls throughout. As the film comes to a close, Ellie and Kiah have some very strong mother-daughter moments which lead to the film closing on a high note, but it is not enough to salvage what had already been lost.

Can I Get a Witness? lacks intrigue past its premise, and the storytelling feels empty as the writing falls flat. The result, unfortunately, is a miss.

still courtesy of CIGAW Productions

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Brennan Dubé

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