Testament of Youth

I remember really enjoying the 1979 BBC dramatisation of this Vera Brittain memoir of her experiences as the Great War took hold of Britain at the start of the 20th century. It's all a little like "Narnia" as her family live out their lives in peace and relative prosperity whilst she (Alicia Vikander) considers a career at Somerville College. Her brother Edward (Taron Egerton) is keen to join up, but their dad (Dominic West) is having none of that so he asks her to try to "persuade" him. That's the start of her own involvement in this conflict, an involvement that is going to expose her to hideous horrors, personal and emotional challenges and to ultimately change her life for ever. It's not just her brother who wants to fight, but his friend Victor (Colin Morgan) and her beau Roland Leighton (Kit Harrington) and so she quite suddenly finds her self somewhat bereft and adrift, studying under Miss Lorimer (Miranda Richardson) at university - but unsure of the value of that now. Determined to offer some practical help to the war effort, she enlists as a nurse and travels to France where she experiences the trauma - and it's results - at first hand and where we, over the next two hours, get a sense of the pride, the sensitivities and the sheer brutality of this war. An indiscriminate type of stale-mate brutality that might seem totally futile were it not for the dedication of those prepared to give their today for someone else's tomorrow. It's beautifully photographed and Vikander presents us with an emotionally delicate but powerful illustration of not just this one woman, but of an entire generation who were ill-prepared for such an enduring and heart-wrenching period. Harington is easy enough on the eye, but he isn't the best for this part. Indeed, I found him to be just a bit too light-weight. Maybe that does typify the innocence of average officer who set off in a freshly tailored uniform thinking it would all be over by Christmas, but I just found his contribution a bit weak. That's more of a niggle, though, because otherwise it's a compelling story that bears watching and provides food for thought as we muse the continuing predilection of mankind to find new ways of slaughtering each other.