Testament
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Movie Reviews of Testament
Movie Review: Every American Should Watch This Movie.
Summary: 5 Stars
There are some images from movies and television that I watched as a child that have been seared into my brain: the Yankee soldier who wets himself before going into battle in THE BLUE AND THE GREY; the venomous snake that spooks the horses in a river crossing in LONESOME DOVE which ends up killing Ricky Schroeder; the masks that the kidnappers where in FORTRESS. Added to these images are a couple more: that of the residents of a small town burning the bodies of their citizens from radiation poisoning after a nuclear holocaust because there is no place left to bury them and disease is spreading too fast and that of a young father (played by Kevin Costner) carrying the body of his newborn child in a dresser drawer to be buried. These last two images are from the film TESTAMENT.
TESTAMENT is the most powerful film about the aftermath of nuclear attack ever made. It aired on television right around the time another movie about the aftermath of a nuclear war, THE DAY AFTER, aired. THE DAY AFTER is kind of a special effects extravaganza complete with launching missiles, mushroom clouds, masses of people in hysteria, and makeup revealing rotting flesh and opens sores. TESTAMENT is a much simpler film. The atomic attack is represented by a bright flash of light and all telephones and televisions going dead.
Jane Alexander portrays the central character of the story, Carol Wetherly, and she does so brilliantly. Wetherly is a stay at home mom with three children and a wonderful husband named Tom (William Devane). The Wetherlys live in the small town of Hamlin, CA--not too far outside of San Francisco. Tom leaves for work on the day of the attack and never comes back. The agony and suffering of this story is relayed ever so eloquently on the day after the attack as Carol realizes that Tom is never going to come back, a realization she eventually has to share with her children. TESTAMENT illustrates just how the people of a small community might have to deal with a nuclear holocaust if it ever happened: people burying their family members in their front yards, town meetings in one of the local churches that continue to drop in number as the days pass, people using HAM radios in attempt to contact someone somewhere, the struggle to find food, the frustration of wanting to leave but not being able to because of no fuel.
Perhaps one of the reasons that TESTAMENT affected me so much is that I was raised in a small town and it made the threat of what a nuclear attack could do very real to me. Many of the characters in the film reminded me of people I knew and I couldn't help but think to myself, what would I do in such a situation? What would my Mom do? Would we be able to survive? Or would we die before our time?
When the Cold War finally thawed in 1989 and finally ended less than a year later, TESTAMENT was forgotten by many people as a relic of the past. I've never forgotten the film and its images have been seared into my mind since I was a child. However, in the post-9/11 world in which we live, TESTAMENT is a film that is just as relevant as ever. As haunting and disturbing as the film is, TESTAMENT is a film that every American should watch at least once.
The DVD version of the film includes a couple of featurettes about the film as well as a timeline of the nuclear age. I enjoyed the TESTAMENT AT 20 featurette the best because it was an honest reflection about the film with some of the principal actors.
Movie Review: Haunting, Powerful and Realistic: Testament
Summary: 5 Stars
The only movie that I will admit makes me cry every time I see it, Testament stands out among the many nuclear holocaust/cold war films of the 80s. Unlike films like The Day After, Testament is not a schlocky science fiction film with mushroom clouds, graphic violence or the always inexplicable roving bands of post-apocolyptic survivors led by the hokey madman. This is a realistic portrayal of real people that will appeal to acting buffs, a realistic portrayal of post-apocolyptic circumstance that will appeal to science fiction buffs and a masterful screenplay and direction that will appeal to film buffs.
Testament is a realistic look at the survivors in a small California town, not directly hit by the blasts. The ordered confusion, hopeful attempts to continue "normally", and then the frustratingly hopeless realization that all you knew is gone and you will soon follow. Seen through the eyes of a "typical" family (realistically portrayed by a cast that includes veteran actor William Devane (the only well-known "star" in the film), Testament first lulls you into a sense of security. Not by making the family a milquetoast cast of mannequins. The family is not at all dysfunctional but have the warts of any real close relatives.
On a typical day the family (the 3 kids portayed by Lukas Haas in his first role, Rossie Harris and Roxana Zal) goof about while their mother (Jane Alexander) awaits her husbands' (Bill Devane)return from a business trip to San Francisco. The terror begins with an emergency broadcast on the television and then a sudden burst of bright light and air-raid sirens. This is the beginning of a slow end that is as emotionally heartbreaking as it is frightening.
This movie has exactly the quality that makes me love a film - ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Moments that stand out are the families taking in of the local gas station owner's developmentally disabled son after his father dies, the daughter's finding the courage to ask her mother what making love is like - realizing she will never get the chance to experience it herself, and the attempted suicide of remaining family members. The story is sometimes narrated by the heartbreaking "testament" of the mother as she chronicles their last days in her journal. Also catch what may be the first screen appearance of a young Kevin Costner.
The film is a little depressing as there is no typical "saved by the cavalry" ending here. This frankly adds to both the realism and the appeal of Testament. This film proves that subtelty, great writing, great acting and great direction trumps special effects and action every time.
Movie Review: Gut Wrenching and Unforgettable
Summary: 5 Stars
Beyond Heartbreaking
I was in my local library a few days back and saw that they had the DVD release of Testament. I decided to borrow the film remembering I saw a few fragments of the film on cable in the mid 1980's. I will probably purchase a copy of the DVD since watching this film is an unforgettable experience.
I've been seeing movies for over 40 years and I can't remember more than a couple of films that have ever brought me to tears. To call this a heartbreaking film does not gives its due. It is truly gut wrenching and devastating. This is a genuine film about the unthinkable - far more disturbing than anything I've ever seen.
Without special effects, graphic images, or typical digitally built tricks and excesses, Testament portrays such a wide range of human emotion and experience for these people suffering through post nuclear holocaust. The filmmakers have not made a political screed or diatribe. This movie is all about humanity, decency and strength in the face of unthinkable horror.
The use of Jane Alexander's voice over narratives, the wonderful characters, incredible acting and directorial restraint as well as the beautifully written script make this film resonate forever.
This is a depressing, devastating yet beautiful movie that shows the decency and humanity of people experiencing the aftermath of the unthinkable. Jane Alexander's Carol, her children and her neighbors are people you care for and want to know even more. There are only a handful of movies or books where I've felt such empathy and genuine compassion.
One of the most unforgettable films I've ever seen.
So many scenes remain with me.
-Jane Alexander's "diary voice-over" where she says "I can't believe the man Brad has become ...and the man he won't live to be" while Brad rides his bike through the desolate storefronts of the San Fransciscan hamlet.
-Jane Alexander bathing and singing lullabies to the dying Scottie is one of the most beautiful, powerful and saddest images I've seen on film. I could not stop crying after that scene and lay in bed for hours thinking of it.
-The sweet developmentally-disabled boy Japanese boy giving Scottie's Teddy Bear to Jane Alexander...
- And of course, Jane Alexander calmly sewing the simple white shroud over Mary. That image may be the most emotionally devastating film moment I've seen.
Movie Review: "This is San Francisco, we have lost our New York signal..."
Summary: 5 Stars
So says the TV broadcaster, who suddenly and jarringly appears on the television screen, after a PBS Children's show that was being aired disappears into snow, one sunny afternoon that the Wetherly family is watching while doing various activities; the daughter practicing the piano, the two brothers squabbling over the TV reception and antenna, and Mom (played by Jane Alexander) listening to telephone messages, when they learn that their world is about to abruptly change. The TV broadcaster goes on to say that "radar sources confirm the explosion of nuclear devices in New York and up and down the East Coast. "Ladies and Gentleman", the TV broadcaster continues, "this is real this is not" when he is interrupted and cut out by the Emergency Broadcasting System.
I saw Testament when it aired on PBS in the early 1980's and it still is one of the most powerful and moving films I have ever seen. For days afterward, I had this melancholy feeling that would not go away.
Testament is a quiet and dignified film about a family living in a town near San Francisco in the aftermath of an unexplained nuclear attack on the United States (I'm assuming by the former Soviet Union). There are no depictions of the nuclear attack other than a flash of light in the film. Nor is any explanation given on the reason why there was a nuclear attack. You do find out in the film from the town's Ham radio operator, that the the entire San Francisco Bay area is out, up north (Portland, OR?, Seattle, WA? Canada?)are ok, and that there is no communication east of the Mississippi River.
Needless to say there isn't a happy ending, but the film does end on a somewhat hopeful note. I also found the film score to be haunting, especially so, as the movie ends with it playing while a Wetherly family home movie is being played of the husband/father's (played by William Devane) birthday party.
Be sure to look for Kevin Costner's and Rebecca De Mornay's cameo roles. Also, the town's elderly and WWII veteran ham radio operator was played by Leon Ames who was the father in the movies "Meet me in St. Louis" and "By the light of the Silvery Moon".
Please read the other reviews for a more detailed description.
Deserves to be seen by everyone.
Movie Review: Duck and cover
Summary: 5 Stars
Strange as it sounds, there was a "golden era" of anti-nuke films, circa 1980-1984 (a veritable flurry of cautionary tales, spurred on, no doubt, by the dreaded thought of Ronnie R's itchy trigger finger wagging ever more perilously close to The Button with every perceived Soviet slight).
One of the best of the bunch (and as timely as ever, actually) is 1983's Testament. Originally an "American Playhouse" presentation on PBS, the film was released to theatres and garnered a well-deserved Best Actress nomination for Jane Alexander (she lost to Shirley MacLaine).
Director Lynne Littman takes a low key, deliberately paced approach, but pulls no punches. Alexander, her husband (William DeVane) and three children (Roxana Zal, Ross Harris and Lukas Haas) live in sleepy Hamlin, California, an idyllic, Speilbergian suburbia, where it's just another day of getting the kids off to school, Dad off to work, and the garbage cans out to the curb. Alexander is directing the local elementary school production of "The Pied Piper Of Hamlin" (which becomes a significant, if somewhat obvious, allegory for what is about to happen to the citizenry of the "real" Hamlin).The children's afternoon cartoons are interrupted by a news flash that a number of nuclear explosions have occurred in New York. Then there is a flash of a whole different kind when nearby San Francisco (where DeVane has gone on a business trip) receives a direct strike.
There is no exposition on the political climate that precipitates the attacks, but I think this is a wise decision by the filmmakers because it helps us zero in on the essential humanistic message of the film. All of the post-nuke horrors ensue, but they are presented sans the histrionics and melodrama that plagued the more widely-seen (and in my opinion, inferior) "The Day After". The fact that the nightmarish scenario unfolds amidst such everyday banality is what makes it so believably horrifying. As the children (and adults) of Hamlin succumb to the inevitable scourge of radiation sickness and (just like the children of the imaginary Hamlin) steadily "disappear", one by one, we are left haunted by the final line of the school production-"Your children are not dead. They will return when the world deserves them." Amen.