What is noticeable about Testament is the quiet, almost understated sobriety of its treatment of the nuclear war theme. Perhaps this is the fact that it is the only among the genre of nuclear war films to be directed by a woman. The focus of the film is all on the family (director Lynne Littman makes the final dedication on the film “to my family”) and the film very rarely opens out to concentrate on the wider community-level holocaust – it does, but its greater focus is within the walls of the suburban home and the way in which the mother selflessly slaves to keep her children and the family unit together. And as such the film is almost entirely successful in circumventing a melodramatic handling. There are few of the cliché images of rioting, looting, anarchy and social devastation in the film, instead it remains entirely mannered in almost all ways. And the results are often powerfully moving. The quiet accumulations of the nightmare – the images of Jane Alexander sewing Roxana Zal into a shroud while her voice on the soundtrack notes: “Today my firstborn died,” to her having to face young Lukas Haas who asks her to make the radiation go away with the truth that she can’t, or the poignant scenes where daughter Zal wants to know what making love might be like with the realization that she never will experience it – are very moving.

The film is significantly aided by the quietly believable performance of Jane Alexander. (Alexander was nominated for both that year’s Academy and Golden Globe Best Actress awards for the role). James Horner’s score does perhaps overly try to ply the emotions, but the film is laudable in low-key lack of melodrama. It is doubtful if the real holocaust, should it come, would be faced with such creditable and orderly dignity. The film is also notable for being one of the earliest screen appearances of a pre-superstardom Kevin Costner in the small part of a neighbouring husband who decides to leave the town for safety.