Testament of Youth (1980) Review

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(More customer reviews)Testament of Youth is a superb and faithfully rendered film version of the first volume of autobiography by Vera Brittain, one of the major voices of her generation, those who were young during the First World War.
The five-part series takes us from the peaceful twilight of Edwardian stuffiness through the horrors of WWI to the hopefulness of the post-war years. We first see Vera at 18, kicking against the strictures and expectations of upper middle class society (and her stubborn traditional father), wanting nothing more in life than to be permitted to attend Oxford. With considerable luck and the tactful intervention of her brother Edward, permission is at last granted, and she applies herself to hard work, winning not only a place at Oxford, but a scholarship as well.
But by now it is 1914. Vera decides to put her education on ice for the duration of the war and become a nurse because she cannot isolate herself from what's happening in the world, when her fiancé and brother and so many other young men of her acquaintance are doing what they feel they have to (courtesy of a well-oiled war propaganda machine). Again her sex is against her, for family, friends and school authorities have no patience with this decision. As a woman, she is under no moral obligation join the war effort (other than some genteel handiwork involving bandages or socks). Until she sees active service in Malta and France, she still feels the gulf between herself and her brother. After France she is again in concert with him and with others who are fighting. This is the same gulf she subsequently experiences from the other side when she returns to Oxford in 1919, where nearly everyone in her year, only a few years younger, seems a generation removed from her.
I first saw this BBC production of Testament of Youth in the early 80s, and have been looking for it for a long time, because it left me with a deep and lasting impression. Not only is the subject matter both significant and captivating, but the I think the production is one of the best films ever made.
The casting is flawless. Cheryl Campbell portrays Vera wonderfully in all her seriousness and fierce determination. Her father is presented as a strict but loving Victorian, bewildered by the changes that the twentieth century is wreaking on him and his family and the settled life he thought would continue forever. Her brother and fiancé represent all that was brilliant and promising in the young men of the time, eager to join up, but so soon brought face to face with the reality of trench warfare.
Costumes and settings are highly evocative of the era (or at least as much as we can know of it today) and there are many scenes that depict the flavour of the times: various meetings at a busy London tea-room, several partings on crowded railway platforms; Oxford before and after the war; the contrast of the incredibly impossible conditions at the field hospital in France with the deadly quiet of the Brittains' London flat, where the conversation centres entirely on rationing and the inability to get good help during war time.
This video set is essential viewing for those interested in Vera Brittain's work, especially her Testament books (including Testament of Experience and Testament of Friendship). Furthermore, I recommend it highly to anyone who appreciates a well-told, intelligent story combining history, romance and the struggle for one's heart's desire.

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