Directed by James Kent | Written by Juliette Towhidi from the book by Vera Brittain | 129 min.

Testament of Youth is a very serious adaptation of a First World War memoir, populated with earnest, fresh faces.

It takes its time getting to the blood and mud, with an overlong first act setting up the slightly wet teen players, primarily Vera (Alicia Vikander, ably hiding her Swedish accent and carrying this weighty affair), her fiance Roland (Kit Harrington), brother Edward (Taron Egerton), and chum, Victor (Colin Morgan). Things look good for Vera when she finally convinces her parents (Dominic West and Emily Watson at their twee-est ) to send her to Oxford, but before long its tearful goodbyes on steam-shrouded platforms as Roland and the other boys go off to war.

That’s the aesthetic in a nutshell: heavy smoke. Kent and his DP Rob Hardy present a film that looks like it was shot through a doily, the interiors gloomy and the exteriors gauzed.  Seems ironic, given Vera’s striving for realism over fantasy in her writing and her life, that the picture would have a look thicker than clotted cream. The vaseline-on-the-lens approach is pointlessly retrograde and does a disservice to the terrific production design.

But Vikander is a force and won’t be stopped, bringing a woman’s perspective on the pointlessness of war, something we don’t see enough of, and getting strong (if fleeting) support from Miranda Richardson and Hayley Atwell. Her journey to hope is a worthy one, if a bit of a slog.