Testament
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Movie Reviews of Testament
Movie Review: Most Powerful, impacting, emotional films ever made!
Summary: 5 Stars
Oh boy....here we go...testament has arrived on DVD! Its been a long time coming but I am so excited to see this make it finally to the DVD format.
Let me tell all of you that this movie was a masterpiece. I saw it back in the early 80s on PBS TV and it just rocked me to the core. IM telling you people this movie is so powerful you will never be the same after watching it!
Its about a family living a typical life of experiences and activities. They live in the suburbs of San Francisco Bay Area - the father goes off to work in San Francisco. The kids are watching cartoons after school and then hell is unleashed upon all! The TV is interrupted by news anchor notifying the entire eastern seaboard has been hit by nuclear missiles. A flash explodes in the living room and a air raid siren blasts....
The story begins....we suffer through the agony and hopelessness as the mother tries to do the best she can to get her family (daughter and 2 sons) to go about their daily lives.
You become so emotionally connected to the characters and their feelings that it becomes utterly painful to see the aftermath destruction of nuclear war via radiation and apocalypse.
You will cry till there's no tommorow when you see the family slowly die one by one. Its a feeling I've not experienced watching television or movies. The acting is so beautiful and authentic you can forget you are watching a tv screen and think you are seeing a live performance.
I am so happy to see this come out on DVD it is really a wake up call to human beings as they will appreciate life and the world we live in as opposed to nuclear holocaust that is out there.
Please understand this movie is so depressing that you may need help to recover from it but its a fictional tale that hopefully never comes true. Buy and see this movie as soon as you can because it will be a life changing experience for you - I have no doubt!
Movie Review: After the nuclear holocaust extravaganza...watch TESTAMENT
Summary: 5 Stars
There's a morbid appeal to man-made-disaster movies. Tension, fleeting anxiety, and there's enjoyment in watching horrible things you'll (hopefully) never see otherwise. But there's a detachment, as well. We may wince and empathize with a character's plight, but as credits roll our participation rapidly wanes. It's not real, it's only a movie.
TESTAMENT is real. Littman's PBS film is far more chilling, pervasive, and in the end, effective. "This is a movie about sheets," Littman observes in one of the extras. No mushroom clouds, no buildings collapse, no riots. And yet the urge to write your political representatives (or take up a picket line) is nearly unshakeable.
Good picture and sound quality with the DVD release, and an excellent set of extras accompany the film.
"Testament at 20" is a well-done, twenty-years-later retrospective by Littman with the principal cast and crew. Of note: Rossie Harris ("Brad," the oldest son) discusses his scenes with "Hiroshi"; Roxanne Zal, her character's inquiry into adult matters; and Lukas Haas reads the letter he wrote to President Reagan at the time.
"Nuclear Thoughts" centers around airing the film to a small group of teens and their discussions afterward. Eerily poignant are the young man who disowns responsibility since no law labels the choice of nuclear exchange as bad, and the young woman so distraught over a girl's death and the mother's anguish who nonetheless keeps referring to the girl's body as "it."
"Timeline of the Nuclear Age" is a text crawl of milestones, from the inception of the Manhattan Project through 2004. The United States' withdrawal from nuclear regulation of late is hard to miss.
Next time you cue up TERMINATOR, INDEPENDENCE DAY, THE DAY AFTER, or even THE DAY AFTER TOMMOROW, enjoy the disaster in all its artistry, but make it a double-bill and follow-up with a viewing of TESTAMENT. Just once should suffice.
Movie Review: The best of the bunch
Summary: 5 Stars
Without sensation or hype, TESTAMENT appeared out of nowhere amid the myriad nuclear holocaust movies of the 80's. With TV blaring "The Day After" and Reagan amping up the arms race, this poignant, touching little film quietly entered the fray.
Though it received a best actress Oscar nomination upon its release, it's been forgotten over the years.
I never got over its power and the emotional impact one little movie could have.
Director Lynne Littman dedicates the film "to my family", which is the heart of the film. It centers on a mother who desperately tries to keep her children safe and her family together in the middle of an unthinkable disaster, without bringing much of what's going on outside into it -- and in doing so, the movie amazingly avoids any melodrama by keeping the action focused and the drama real.
While her kids watch TV, argue and play, Carol (Jane Alexander) is listening to her husband's phone message that he won't be home in time for dinner. Suddenly, the program is interrupted by a news report: New York and the East Coast have been destroyed by nuclear explosions.
Littman goes all the way--her film flying in the face of movie convention, unflinching in her illustration of the slow course of radiation poisoning, the disintegration of society, and in watching one woman hold it together in spite of everything,
Jane Alexander's moving performance is heartbreaking. Her daughter wants to know what making love is like, knowing that she never will experience it; she searches desperately for the teddy bear her son loved so he can be buried with it, she stoically sews her daughter's burial shroud -- the emotions are taut and controlled, and the viewer is left feeling a very real, very profound loss.
I sobbed when I saw this movie, and I'm no sap.
A very poignant, affecting and painful film. Not to be missed.
Movie Review: Life in a post-nuclear world
Summary: 5 Stars
Testament has always been one of my favorite movies, and when the chance came to get it on DVD, I jumped at it.
In this movie, Jane Alexander plays Carol Wetherly, a harried suburban housewife whose husband (William Devane) is out of town when her world is shattered by a nuclear attack. Unable to contact him, Mrs. Wetherly is forced to nurse her two eldest children as they succumb to the effects of nuclear radiation while the world is falling apart all around them, as well as confronting her own mortality. Kevin Costner and Rebecca DeMornay also give surprisingly good performances as a young couple of Carol's acquaintance who, after losing their baby to the effects of the radiation, decide to pack up and move out of the area to escape.
One of the things I like about this DVD is that the extras, though few in number, are very good and offer some insight into what the movie is all about. Testament At 20 reunites the 3 principal actors (Alexander, Lukas Haas, and Roxana Zal) for a discussion about the making of the movie, interspersed with clips of interviews from director Lynne Littman, composer James Horner, and others involved in making the film. Testament: Nuclear Thoughts is more of an educational documentary, with school students talking about the film and its impact on them interspersed with clips from director Lynne Littman and actress Jane Alexander. There is also a text timeline that covers the entire nuclear age, from the earliest Manhattan Project experiments all the way through Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Some people may say that Testament has become somewhat dated, but I still recommend it very highly. In these turbulent times, it still conveys a message that should not be ignored.
Movie Review: Still makes sense
Summary: 5 Stars
I know this was made in the early 80's, and I was born in the late 70's. The cold war was pretty much over by the time i was in grade school. I heard good things about this movie over at imdb, and too a chance renting it, and I'm glad I did.
The story is pretty straightforward, and it leaves out info like what country did the attack, which would have made no difference to them anywhow. A nice, normal family goes about it's day, Dad heads to the city for work, Mom helps at son's preschool, daughter practices piano, and then the brightest light, a nuclear bomb goes off. They were spared the explosion but not the fall out.
As a mother, I found this story so sad and heart wrenching because the things that were killing her family were totally out of her control, and there was no place to go for help. This movie does take a real look at grief, from the teddy bear cene to the birds and the bees scene. With all the threats of terrorism, I think this movie fits quite well with today's society. It made me feel like I had no control over protecting my daughter, and the sad truth is I wouldn't be able to save her. Duck and cover? Get out of here. They just say that so people feel like there's something they can do. I loved this movie, and thought it was very powerful. On the DVD they do interviews with the cast and crew 20 years later, and I enjoyed watching that.
I don't think this is a movie I will ever forget, and I'm so glad I watched it. I just hope none of us ever has to live something like it.