Testament of Youth

Vera Brittain’s famous memoir Testament of Youth opens with the following poignant line: “When the Great War broke out, it came to me not as a superlative tragedy, but as an interruption of the most exasperating kind to my personal plans.” What unfolds over the next 600 pages is, despite its value as a document of a turbulent period in 20^th century history, first and foremost a very personal story. It chronicles not just Vera’s own fate but that of her entire generation, of the young men and women around her whose lives were shaped by world events far beyond their control. Testament of Youth was unique in being the only book written about WW1 by a woman, but hers is not a sentimentalised account. As she was keen to emphasise: “I have tried to write the exact truth as I saw and see it […], since a book of this kind has no value unless it is honest.”

While Brittain’s book covers the period of her life from 1900-1925, the new film, released appropriately enough to coincide with the centenary commemoration of World War One, spans just the four years of that conflict. The opening scenes introduce us to a young Vera, growing up in provincial comfort in the north of England. We see her arguing with her parents, railing at the narrow expectations of class and gender to which she is expected to conform (including demurely playing the piano at home until, presumably, it is deemed time for her to marry). This is not the life Vera wants - she has set her sights set on reading English at Oxford. When she wins an exhibition to Somerville College it is up to her brother Ted  (played by Taron Egerton) to plead her case with their father, a favour she is to return later in the film when he in turn has to beg his father for permission to sign up to fight.  Vera then meets and falls in love with her brother’s best friend, Roland Leighton (played by Kit Harrington). He too has won a place at Oxford, but finds his plans immediately thwarted by the outbreak of war. Vera, dismayed at his decision to sign up, enters Oxford on her own but soon finds she has a deep-seated need to “do something”. That something turns out to be nursing, a job for which she openly admits to being (at first, anyway) temperamentally unsuited. With characteristic energy and determination, she knuckles down and is soon exposed to the horrors of war. Roland comes home on his first leave already numbed and traumatised by what he has witnessed. In an attempt to get him to open up to her, Vera asks Roland: “Have you written any poems?” The words ring hollow, pointing up as they do the stark contrast between the calm, settled existence they have both known and the horror of the conflict into which they have been plunged. By the end of this scene Roland has proposed to Vera. He promises they will marry on his next leave at Christmas and tries to reassure her by saying that his being posted to headquarters rather than the front line will mean he is safe. Sadly, as preparations for the wedding get underway, news comes that Roland has been killed. In a desperate attempt to find out exactly what happened to him, Vera visits his friend Geoffrey. He (eventually) tells her the messy truth of her fiancé’s death. She decides to go to France to be near her brother Edward and starts work at the military hospital in Etaples where she nurses soldiers hideously wounded on the front line, including Germans. Edward, too, is seriously wounded but then recovers sufficiently to be sent to fight in Italy. On his departure, he makes his sister promise to return to her studies at Oxford. This does not happen immediately as Vera is summoned home to sort out what is described by her father as a “domestic crisis”, i.e. she is to minister to her hysterical, overwrought mother. While at home, news comes in June 1918 of Edward’s death in Italy. Following the armistice, Vera takes up her place at Oxford, where she meets Winifred Holtby who was to become a lifelong friend. One of the final scenes of the film shows Vera’s first meeting with the political scientist George Catlin whom she went on to marry in 1925. As the film closes, we see Vera making her views felt at a political rally and get a sense of the direction her life is to take. Brittain went on to become a prolific speaker, journalist and lecturer, devoting herself to the twin causes of pacifism (even as late as the 1970s she was demonstrating with CND) and feminism.

All in all, I thought this was an excellent film and that Alicia Vikander played Vera with just the right mix of vulnerability and grit. Vera’s daughter, Shirley Williams said she was anxious that her mother should not be portrayed as merely a romantic heroine, but as someone who had real political conviction and was always passionate in her support of the pacifist cause. I think the film succeeds in doing that and I felt that anyone watching the film without having ever read Brittain’s memoir, would still get some sense of what Vera was like and what she stood for. Despite the obvious potential for sinking into melodrama, the film manages to avoid it and the poignancy of Vera’s story is never lost. The film is also beautifully shot and has some effective cinematic moments, such as the crane shot sweeping over the ranks of the dying at Etaples towards the end – very moving. Testament of Youth certainly pulls no punches in its unvarnished portrayal of the suffering caused by the Great War. Watching the film, as one critic put it, is like being “pummelled by sadness”. Yes, this is a sad story but it is also a story of courage, conviction and is, strangely, extremely life-affirming.

See the Testament of Youth trailer here: http://youtu.be/vKt_G23eUJc