Minimal, stark, bleak, deeply personal, and profoundly sad, After nuclear attack, movie details how the fallout affects Jane Alexander's family, and community, Very realistic in how the family and neighbors deal with the hopeless situation, Heartfelt performances all around.

A downer, powerful quasi-sci-fi drama that features a absolutly immaculate performance by Jane Alexander as a mother that slowly loses all hope amidts a nuclear holocaust; alongside a very bleak and raw atmosphere due to it's just-as amazing direction. One of the few movies that genuinely made me cry more than once while watching.

How will each and every one of us behave with the understanding that there are a finite number of days remaining? Oh, and throw in nuclear war and the swift decline of an 80s American suburban setting. Jane Alexander does the heavy lifting, she's good at portraying a woman with her life, family and community succumbing to death. But, it is the cast of child actors who extraordinarily perform their roles with little affectation. Refreshing. The film is not action, not edited for action stars, nor swift in the sequence of actions. The slow demise of civilization comes without a soaring soundtrack and death is now met with vows of vengeance. Watch it. Maybe just so that we can imagine another method of behavior in the face of catatvkysnic catastrophe. How will each and every one of us behave?

Be forewarned, it is rated PG and it was the 80's. Not as horrifying but it does develop into a very grim potential reality. This is a good example of how civil people should and would deal with a nuclear attack. It is a tad on the slower and softer side but, honestly, that is how it should be if people are handling the situation in a civil manner... because it is right to take a knee when facing the onslaught of a neverending overwhelming burden.

The end of the world feels like something out of the Bible; Old Testament Armageddon stuff For this family that's what it feels like Starring Jane Alexander, William Devane, and Kevin Costner In the town of Hamelin, San Francisco we focus on the Weatherly family Carol and Tom have 3 kids making it through the hectic day Then one afternoon the unthinkable happens; a state of emergency is declared on television that America has just been struck by a nuclear crisis The West Coast faces a holocaust and the Weatherlys have to hold up together to survive But how much time do they have? What about the other neighbors? It's bad enough communications are cut off, there's no lab equipment to measure radiation levels or to know what side effects are taking effect This definitely has everyone on edge 'Testament' makes sense given it was released during the age of nuclear war, America was afraid of our government pushing the doomsday button frequently This film deals with the fear of anxiety and the unseen instilling it Director Lynne Littman definitely portrays the unraveling of society and peoples despair from the aftermath of disaster And considering all the conflicts going on right now with Ukraine and Israel it feels more terrifying highlighting people's vulnerability no matter what age or status This acts more of a character drama than an apocalyptic action film being more emotionally intimate We see how the fallout takes its toll on the townspeople; one scene in particular is truly saddening It's more about what is happening as opposed to the how and why The Weatherlys do all they can to hold onto whatever hope remains I won't lie this is a heartbreaking watch seeing many of these players slowly dwindling away Yet it acts as a true tragedy about manners; how we might act toward one another, how our values stand up, in the face of an overwhelming catastrophe

This is scary stuff. The fear of not knowing is very powerful. This is a family story of nuclear war. That is very scary indeed. This is not graphic in its depiction of the end of civilisation. It just shows a few people coping the best that they can. It would be so tough and I hope that no-one ever has to go through it for real.

I saw Testament for the first time when it originally aired on PBS decades ago. After a recent second viewing, I believe it has lost none of it's devastating impact. There's one heartbreaking scene after another as one family struggles to deal with an unthinkable disaster. Alexander, as a mom bravely fighting for her family's survival under unimaginable circumstances, is simply unforgettable.

Testament is probably the least bombastic and explosive film about the aftermaths of nuclear war you'll ever see. What we are presented with instead is a deeply intimate and poignant family/small town drama centred around the Oscar-nominated lead performance from Jane Alexander. The film is set in the small town of Hamelin in California which manages to remain unscathed when nuclear bombs rain down on the major cities in the US. The townsfolk count themselves lucky to have survived the attacks and attempt to bunch together to continue living their lives as normally as they can. Fairly quickly though the hopelessness and despair starts to seep in as the bodies start to pile up and the fallout and radiation from the bombs begins to take hold of the community. We never see the terrifying immediacy of mushroom cloud explosions, blown-out buildings or charred corpses we observed in films like The Day After and Threads, but Testament offers something more: the overwhelming despair of watching society disintegrate and fall apart in slow motion whilst accepting your own mortality in a seemingly empty future. This is one of the most sobering films made about the futility of nuclear warfare and the direction from Lynne Littman is stellar. She manages portray this story in a manner that doesn't come across preachy or voyeuristic. Definitely check this one out if you can.

If you have kids, this movie will destroy you.

This muted treatment of Carol Amen's three-page story titled "The Last Testament" about a suburban American family's radioactive affliction in a nuclear holocaust endeavors for solemn ecological consciousness but feels lukewarm.

effecting but extremely bleak.

Testament is a slow-burn that tests your guts. It begins like an after school special, but descends into substance with the run-time. It's a film about perseverance through a nightmare. The United States has suffered multiple nuclear attacks — we never learn which country is responsible or if it was domestic terrorism. The attack itself is portrayed by a blinding white light — there are no scenes of bodies being incinerated or buildings folding into dust. We are left with the survivors of an upper-middle class Bay Area suburb. Slowly, the "survivors" succumb to the illness of nuclear fallout and begin to fill, then overtake, the town's graveyard. What haunts the viewer are the characters' relationship with death and how matter-of-fact it has become. Carol (Jane Alexander) becomes our protagonist who keeps a stoic mien on the outside, but we know she's internally deteriorating through her journal entries. She has to bury two of her three children, and in a scene that had my jaw on the floor, contemplates taking her third's life along with her own. Was expecting a more hopeful ending, but that's not what we got, and that's okay. Testament is far from the type of film we get in 2019. Give it a watch.

As a movie buff who has matured with the film industry, you have to keep the expectations relevant to the time the film was made. Some of the acting is a bit hokey and the dialogue a bit contrived and cliche. However, the film quickly sucks you in as things get real and they get real fast. To me, the plot was not about a gripping tale of survival and a ray of light peaking out of the darkness. It's simply a punch you straight in the face, it is what it is, gloomy film about how a woman watches her babies slowly rot and die. Her community solemnly parallels her tragic experiences trying to hold on but eventually surrender and sympathy and the culture of their town with each resident. Essentially you see how life loses all purpose and makes no sense but her internal instincts push her to live on while there is no hope and no reason to live. There are truly touching moments, such as discovering an unheard message on an answering machine and finding a lost teddy bear, that magnify the trivial aspects of everyday life into extremely important experiences that sky rocket your heart to hope but quickly bring you mercilessly crashing back to earth reminding you there is escaping. It is a foreboding of a gruesome fate of the survivors of a nuclear holocaust.

Acting was decent but the subject matter oh so depressing, Message; "Nuclear war and its aftermath would suck." Yep, got it...

I first saw this movie when it was in theaters in 1983. At the time, it was groundbreaking. At this point, no one else had made a movie that showed what the effects of a nuclear attack would be on people who were far enough away to not what happened, but close enough to experience the effects. Jane Alexander played the role perfectly, as always. Dealing with the desintigration of her family, her neighborhood, and her community as people either leave for hopes of a better future, or slowly die from radiation poisoning. The thing that really stuck with me is, when the movie ended, not one person got up from their seat. Even after all the lights came up and the theater staff started to cleanup the theatre for the next showing. It was that powerful.

A good post-apocalypse movie, little seen by most folks. It reveals the banality of the end-of-the-world in suburban America. Despite a lack of direct impact from the nuclear strikes, society collapses anyway.

Don't expect Threads or The Day After....however, it's a good movie.

I still remember reading the short story when it was first published in Ms. Magazine and bursting into tears even though it was just a few pages long. The movie is a faithful rendering. The story is similar to Nevil Shute's " On The Beach" about how people cope knowing they are among the last survivors of a nuclear war and summoning up their best to meet their certain end. This is a smaller, more intimate story as it focuses primarily on one family in a small town. Somewhat clichéd, it is nevertheless a touching story with good performances, especially Jane Alexander. Well worth watching. I was lucky enough to have taped it and am glad I still have the vcr tape. It is a surprise it isn't on DVD or at in iTunes, especially since it features early performances by Kevin Costner and Rebecca DeMornay and even Lukas Haas who went on to star as the little boy in Witness.

What I learned from Testament is that the state of civil defense in the US is woefully unprepared for any kind of severe prolonged crisis. The department of Homeland security wants today's citizens to be the ones who take responsibility for their own safety. Testament shows the complete fallacy and ludicrousness of such a policy. How much canned food can someone possibly store in their basements? And when will the crisis occur and canned foods have shelf life too? Is it possible to store enough food for a prolonged crisis in today's modern world? After watching Testament, I am convinced that the department of homeland security's policies are unsound and there is nothing individuals can do to sustain their lives in today's world without organized governmental help. It's been proved again and again during Hurricane Katrina and other disasters, yet the government ignores today's realities. The nice part about this movie is that it shows society can breakdown to complete failure even if there is no violence by the population affected by the crisis.

Testament is open forgotten about in the rather small canon on films that depict nuclear disaster and for good reason..it's good but it pales in comparison to the edgier Threads in capturing likely actions after a nuclear blast.