Testament (1983)

Barely a Bruise - Testament review by griggs

Thirty years on from a school screening of Threads that never really left me, this was always going to have a hard time. Still, I hoped Testament might carve out its own small, devastating corner of the nuclear nightmare. It has the right setup — suburban normality curdling into grief as fallout does its work — but it never quite finds the courage to say anything meaningful about the horror causing it. There’s a much sharper film lurking here, one willing to aim at the politics as well as the pain. This isn’t that film.

It’s too slow to sting and too muted to haunt. The writing seems to think quiet automatically equals profound, and the result is less warning shot than TV weepie. DeVane and Costner disappear early, and Jane Alexander is left carrying the whole thing almost single-handed.

At ninety minutes, this really shouldn’t drag. A film about the end of everything ought to leave a mark. This barely leaves a bruise.