Testament of Youth

Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth is one of the most powerful and celebrated war memoirs in the English language. Hers is one of the very few female voices in the war narrative field, describing both the impact of the war on the lives of women and the struggles to affirm her own female identity in a world only barely tolerant towards educated women. On the year that marks the First World War centenary James Kent directs a biopic based on Vera’s book, starring Alicia Vikander as Vera and Kit Harington as her fiancé Roland. Vera's stubborn desire to get a higher education and become a writer is suddenly thwarted by the outbreak of the Great War, which forces her to momentarily put her dreams aside and volunteer as a nurse while her loved ones leave for the front. The innocence of a whole generation is lost forever and grief is almost palpable in a film which offers no relief for the meaningless battlefield deaths of thousands of young men.

Morena Maglitto