The Witness, a new three-part drama on Netflix, takes a fresh and harrowing look at the 1992 murder of Rachel Nickell, who was stabbed 49 times while walking on Wimbledon Common with her two-year-old son, Alex. Unlike previous dramatisations, the series focuses not on the police or the killer, but on the family left behind: Alex and his father, André.
André must navigate the grief of losing his partner, the challenge of becoming a single parent overnight, and the complexity of caring for a traumatised young boy while dealing with the demands of the police investigation. The series is particularly interested in whether Alex, too young to fully understand what he saw, will be further damaged by efforts to extract information from his preschooler's mind. André must make the call about how far to push him.
The Witness courageously shows that André does not cope well. He makes questionable decisions, such as showing irritation at Alex misbehaving in front of a child psychologist, or insisting on taking Alex to identify Rachel's body. In one unforgettable scene, the boy seems to know better than his father that no good will come of seeing his dead mother, and he stays on the floor playing with toys.
As the story hops back and forth in time, we see Alex as a teenager, rebelling in normal ways, with the added fissure of disagreement with his father about how to address their past. The war between them can make them frustrating protagonists, but when they eventually find a path, it is a sweet redemption.
The series is also unequivocal in showing the despicable behaviour of the British tabloid press, who are portrayed as a feral pack barking out crass questions, rifling through bins, stealing post, and even doing a racist monkey chant to provoke André. André and Alex live like fugitives, moving to France and Spain, but journalists pursue them with pitiless intensity.
If some details are appalling and difficult to believe, it is easier to do so considering how honest The Witness is about the imperfect conduct of André and Alex after their loss. This programme deals in difficult truths; how toxic our media can be is one of them.
