It happened in an instant. The televisions went blank, the radios - silent. The cities were gone, the future abandoned. And the only thing they have left to hold onto, is the people they love.

Testament...to a nuclear holocaust

Imagine a day like any other. The children are fighting, the refrigerator is humming. Highways are jammed, playgrounds are filled. Everything is perfectly normal... For the very last time.


Director Lynne Littman has created an effective, understated portrayal of the cost of a nuclear war in human terms, in a film as far removed from the fake hyperbole of action and disaster movies as the natural world is from cartoons. Set in the small California town of Hamlin, the Wetherly family and their everyday concerns open the story. The trivia that fills their secure, ordinary existence disappears when a TV show is interrupted with the announcement that nuclear bombs have exploded in the major cities on the East Coast, and then the entire scene is erased in an increasingly white, blank movie screen -- meant to show that nuclear blasts have been detonated in California as well. Over 1000 people die in the first month from radiation sickness, but the mother in the Wetherly family (Jane Alexander) displays great inner strength as she cares for orphaned children the family has taken under its wing and goes on sustaining those that remain in her own family. At one point, she quietly conveys to her daughter the happiness of intimacy between two adults, knowing her daughter will not live to experience adult love. As these individuals and the children cope with day-to-day existence, there is never any intrusion of overt horrors, the focus remains on the individuals and the way in which they adjust to the inevitable.


Testament (1983) is a drama film based on The Last Testament by Carol Amen, directed by Lynne Littman and written by John Sacret Young. The film tells the story of how one small suburban town near the San Francisco Bay Area slowly falls apart after a nuclear war destroys outside civilization.
Originally produced for the PBS series American Playhouse, it was given a theatrical release instead (although PBS did subsequently air it a year later). The cast includes Jane Alexander, William Devane, Leon Ames, Lukas Haas, Roxana Zal and, in small roles shortly before a rise in their stardom, Kevin Costner and Rebecca De Mornay. Alexander was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

Testament received positive reviews from the few critics who got the opportunity to see it. Testament currently maintains an 86% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 7 reviews. Famed critic Roger Ebert, of the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film a rare four stars out of four, and was highly enthusiastic about the film. Ebert said that the film was powerful and made him cry, even after the second time he watched it. Ebert wrote: "The film is about a suburban American family, and what happens to that family after a nuclear war. It is not a science-fiction movie, and it doesn't have any special effects, and there are no big scenes of buildings blowing over or people disintegrating. We never even see a mushroom cloud. We never even know who started the war. Instead, "Testament" is a tragedy about manners: It asks how we might act toward one another, how our values might stand up, in the face of an overwhelming catastrophe."[1]
Testament was nominated for one Academy Award, Best Actress for Jane Alexander.


Release Date: November 4, 1983

Distrib: Paramount

Boxoffice: $2,044,892 2013: $5,297,200