Review of Testament of Youth (2015) by Dave M — 18 Jul 2015

Context is important. It's one of the reasons that I write my reviews the way I do. Understanding where a film came from and why it was made is an important part of deciding whether to see that particular film. This is especially true when a movie is based on a true story, but makes no attempt to establish its own context or an understanding of why it thinks it's important. Such a film can leave the viewer with the feeling that it lacks a cohesive story and is merely a random collection of practically disconnected scenes. This is the main problem with "Testament of Youth" (PG-13, 2:09)... so here's some background.

Vera Brittain (1893-1970) was a British feminist and pacifist writer who published her autobiography in a series of books called "Testament of Youth", "Testament of Friendship" and "Testament of Experience", with "Testament of Time" unfinished at the time of Brittain's death. The first one of these, which covers her life's journey between the years 1900 and 1925, has been highly acclaimed for its portrayal of the experiences of women during World War I (1914-1918) and the war's impact on the home front. It's this first installment in Brittain's autobiography that forms the basis for the film by the same title.

Alicia Vikander stars as Vera Brittain. After a brief scene on the day that the armistice was signed, the story picks up just as the events that will lead to the outbreak of World War I are set into motion by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand. (Fellow students of history will be able to follow the movie's timeline through the shots of newspaper headlines spread throughout the film.) Vera is enjoying a relatively carefree existence with her younger brother, Edward (Taron Egerton) and his friend Victor when, just as she is telling her father (Dominic West) and mother (Emily Watson) that she shall never marry, she meets Edward's friend, Roland Leighton (Kit Harrington), the man who will one day propose to her.

All Vera wants to do is be a writer. She has the brains and the passion and her parents have the means to send her to university, but she is battling the popular perception of the time that higher education is unnecessary for young women. Edward helps convince their father to allow Vera to apply to Oxford University and take the entrance exam. She works to prepare herself and, in spite of doing so in a self-created vacuum of sorts, she passes. Her time at Oxford's Sommerville College, however, is interrupted by the war. "I must do something" she says as she announces her decision to leave Sommerville and become a nurse as her way of supporting her brother, her new boyfriend, Roland, and their friends, which now also include Geoffrey (Jonathan Bailey).

We see Vera serving as a nurse in London and, later, in France, where she decides to go to be closer to where her brother is serving. (Brittain's wartime service in Malta is not shown in the film.) As Vera cares for the injured and the dying, she has to overcome prejudice resulting from her well-to-do background, her total lack of knowledge and experience regarding matters of medicine, the stigma of sometimes having to care for wounded enemy soldiers and her grief at the death of so many men - both those under her care and some whom she knows personally. It's clear that these experiences have a profound effect on who she is as a person. As everyone else celebrates, she is strangely conflicted when the armistice is signed and an impromptu speech she makes at the end of the film gives a strong indication of the woman and the writer that Vera Brittain is to become.

"Testament of Youth" is based on a true story, but any indication of that fact is strangely absent from the film until the closing credits are about to roll. The film also fails to be honest about what it is. The movie's advertising and most of the film sells itself as a story about relationships, while a subtle anti-war message percolates beneath the surface, only to hit the viewer in the face as the movie ends. The acting is excellent (especially from Vikander) and the sense of time and place is solid, but what the movie lacks most is a strong narrative thread. It feels like it's the story of a strong young woman practically drifting through her own life and featuring scenes and connections which seem to come out of nowhere. I don't need a story in which everything is tied up with a bow, but I expect a movie to be honest with me about its point of view, or at least make it clear that the story is headed somewhere. "C".