Format: Streaming video from Hoopla Digital on The Nook.
If you’re roughly my age, you remember what growing up in that part of the Cold War was like. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s been awhile. My friends and I didn’t talk about what we’d do if the bombs dropped; we talked about what we’d do when it happened. It seemed inevitable. This constant dread created an odd little subgenre that wasn’t unique to the 1980s, but really seemed to hit its stride in that decade. The Day After and Miracle Mile are relatively well-known, and Threads is known to a certain collection of film viewers. So it’s odd to me that Testament seemed to slip through the cracks.
Testament comes in at just about 90 minutes, and it uses its time very wisely. The first 20 minutes or so sets up the Wetherly family. Father Tom (William Devane) works in San Francisco and spends his mornings riding his bike with his older son Brad (Ross Harris, recognizable almost immediately as the kid from the cockpit scene in Airplane!). Mother Carol (Jane Alexander) stays at home and helps out at the school of younger son Scottie (Lukas Haas). Oldest child and lone daughter Mary Liz (Roxana Zal) helps out with Scottie’s school play on the piano. We’re given a nice, completely normal American suburban family.
