Witnesses

The first time 'Witnesses' shows us Joseph Smith (Paul Wuthrich), he's running through the woods, clutching the golden plates while men hunt him down. Then comes the slow work of translation, with Smith reading from a seer stone placed in a hat while others write down every word.

Three of them matter most. Martin Harris (Lincoln Hoppe) is a neighbour and one of the first converts, while Oliver Cowdery (Caleb J. Spivak) and David Whitmer (Michael Zuccola) join Smith in upstate New York. All three come to say they've seen the plates and an angel, and in 1829 their testimony is printed with the Book of Mormon.

It costs them dearly. They face ridicule, mobs and death threats, and when they fall out with Smith they're cut off from the church they helped build. The film wants to understand why, after all that, none of them ever took back what they said.

Mark Goodman directed it for the Interpreter Foundation from a script by Mitch Davis, who made 'The Other Side of Heaven' (2001), one of the early titles of so-called Mormon cinema. It was shot in Utah and Canada and opened in US cinemas on 4 June 2021, landing 11th at the box office that weekend. The foundation also launched a website about the witnesses to go with it.

Church-friendly outlets were enthusiastic, especially about Wuthrich's Joseph Smith, which more than one critic called the best the screen has seen. Mainstream reviews were cooler: they liked that it doesn't hide the witnesses' clashes with Smith, but found it crammed with historical detail that outsiders will struggle to follow.

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