Witnesses

The church use to excommunicate people for teaching that Joseph Smith translated from a hat. Most of this is white washed history.

I wish I could give Witnesses a higher rating. After all, it means well, and the acting is good. However, as a film, it's a little messy. First of all, it's a frame story, so there's that element, and then they have three different accounts they're trying to tell at the same time. Plus, in addition to all that, they also jump around in time within those accounts. It gets confusing. And I feel like they tried to cram too much into the movie. I'm fairly familiar with the history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I imagine Witnesses would be quite confusing for someone who isn't.

The film focuses on real people as they live through extra-ordinary events, The history aspect is more a backdrop in the lives and emotions of the characters. Too often, Church History genre of films are overshadowed by speculation, conspiracy, or are too focused on depicting key points in their portrayal of historical figures, actions, events and their context. Refreshingly, this film did not go there, leaving the audience to be entertained rather than schooled. This movie is about people, not a Prophet, nor a Church, nor a book (though these 3 things play a crucial role and are portrayed with painstaking historical accuracy in my opinion.) But as such, the film may leave unfamiliar movie-goers with lots of questions about the Prophet, the Church, and the Book of Mormon. For example, my wife asked whether the early Church didn't baptize woman.

Tons of antagonists of the church are rating this movie hoping it will make them feel better about their lives. This movie is amazing! I saw it in theaters and bought the movie as soon as I could. It's a beautiful depiction of the events with the 3 witnesses of the Book of Mormon translation. I would highly recommend this movie to everyone!

It was good to see that the movie did not just gloss over the negative events of that day. And did not hide the fact that the witnesses all had issues with Joseph Smith and left the church.