Tes­ta­ment of Youth

Those who think they don’t make ​’em like they used to may well enjoy James Kent’s Tes­ta­ment of Youth. That’s if your idea of how they used to make ​’em equates to pret­ti­ly pack­aged mis­ery and stiff-upper-lipped loss. Based on a mem­oir by Vera Brit­tain, this is the debut fea­ture of a sea­soned TV direc­tor who unam­bi­tious­ly pitch­es this biopic at the Down­ton Abbey set rather than those more like­ly to take full heed of a trail­blaz­ing home­grown heroine.

Brit­tain was a nurse dur­ing World War One and lat­er a cel­e­brat­ed writer and paci­fist whose wartime expe­ri­ences were pub­lished in the epony­mous 1933 auto­bi­og­ra­phy. Kent’s film por­trays Vera (Ali­cia Vikan­der) as a spir­it­ed gal liv­ing through a sti­fling time, some­one who rejects a life of after-din­ner piano play­ing and domes­tic­i­ty. She doesn’t just dream of becom­ing an Oxford schol­ar, but is stub­born and tal­ent­ed enough to make it hap­pen. With the sup­port of her beloved broth­er Edward (Taron Egerton) she suc­cess­ful­ly peti­tions her father (Dominic West) to allow her to sit the Oxford entrance exam. When war inter­venes, how­ev­er, the hopes of Vera and those around her are cru­el­ly dashed.

Vikan­der makes for a dis­tract­ing­ly exot­ic, waif-like hero­ine; her radi­ance might jar when she’s up to her neck in the hor­rors of war but she’s con­vinc­ing­ly wil­ful and ably inspires respect and empa­thy. As love inter­est Roland, Game of Thrones star Kit Har­ing­ton does his earnest, flop­py-haired thing, yet he’s less adept at com­mu­ni­cat­ing his character’s dete­ri­o­rat­ing, bat­tle-scarred psyche.

It might err towards the soft-focus, but Rob Hardy’s cin­e­matog­ra­phy is stun­ning, while Con­so­la­ta Boyle’s cos­tume design con­sis­tent­ly impress­es too. The scale of Vera’s per­son­al tragedy is so great that it’s impos­si­ble not to be moved, espe­cial­ly giv­en how clue­less every­one is going into the war (‘The papers are say­ing it’ll be short and fast’), and it’s heart­break­ing to watch the boys line up eager­ly, like lambs to the slaughter.

But Kent applies such smoth­er­ing nos­tal­gia that the raw­ness and true depth of emo­tion strug­gle to break through. His film also tends toward the awk­ward­ly twee – for exam­ple when Hay­ley Atwell turns up as a fel­low nurse, her per­for­mance so epit­o­mis­es the expres­sion ​‘jol­ly hock­ey sticks’ – it wouldn’t be a shock if she came right out and said it.

This is a suf­fo­cat­ing­ly sad sto­ry but Kent’s staunch com­mit­ment to palata­bil­i­ty means it’s all too care­ful­ly con­trolled. We final­ly see Vera rage at the futil­i­ty of war and the bloody, ago­nis­ing, anony­mous deaths it incurs in a pas­sion­ate polemic at the close, but by then it’s too late. Play­ing things so safe means that Tes­ta­ment of Youth feels a touch too TV-at-teatime; it pri­ori­tis­es its sta­tus as respectable her­itage dra­ma over show­ing the real­i­ty of com­bat and the ugli­ness of extreme emo­tion. Even if it would not have been total­ly appro­pri­ate to give us blood-and-guts real­ism, this remark­able woman deserved a more fear­less approach.