{"id":3928,"date":"2015-07-09T16:56:51","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T23:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=3928"},"modified":"2015-07-09T16:56:51","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T23:56:51","slug":"review-testament-of-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=3928","title":{"rendered":"Review: TESTAMENT OF YOUTH"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>The thing about \u201cTestament of Youth\u201d is that it is so very familiar. It is a handsome adaptation of the best-selling English autobiography by Vera Brittain. And as good as it is, it isn\u2019t anything more than what one would expect from a BBC television offering. We\u2019ve seen this sort of thing before.<\/p>\n

Vera (\u201cEx Machina\u2019s\u201d Alicia Vikander) is a young woman in World War I Brittain. She\u2019s head-strong and has her heart set on attending Oxford. Her father (Dominic West) buys her a piano while claiming that Oxford is too expensive and really just a waste of money for a girl. But when she is visited by Roland (\u201cGame of Thrones\u2019\u201d Kit Harington) something stirs within her, and he\u2019s okay with Oxford. Of course, the war intervenes and Vera\u2019s life will change forever.<\/p>\n

With an excellent cast and top tier cinematography, \u201cTestament of Youth\u201d should have connected with me more. My English wife really loved it, which means that either she was filled with a nationalist pride or the film plays better for female viewers. Frankly, it is probably a little of both, and the female protagonist helps endear the movie with its key demographic. Still, \u201cTestament of Youth\u201d is certainly no \u201cAtonement,\u201d a film that utilized a more complex narrative structure and moved me especially with its closing sequence. <\/p>\n

Vikander is solid in the lead. And she\u2019s everywhere these days. I\u2019ve yet to catch her in \u201cEx Machina,\u201d a movie that has critics already calling it one of this year\u2019s best. Harington is positively unrecognizable as the love interest. Fans of \u201cGame of Thrones\u201d will have to look close at this clean shaven Harington, who arguably looks more comfortable adorned in the crow wardrobe guarding the great wall. Here he\u2019s fine, but the film does not give him much to chew on.<\/p>\n

There is nothing wrong with \u201cTestament of Youth.\u201d But it isn\u2019t the memorable period epic that it could have been. And with best-selling material at its source that might be a small crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not bad, but no ATONEMENT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3928"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3932,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3928\/revisions\/3932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}