1980s SF film
The Day After, 1983, USA DIRECTED BY NICHOLAS MEYER
The Day After has been described as the most educational two hours of Ronald Reagan's presidency, as this film persuaded him to soften his belligerent stance towards the Soviet Union. He even mailed Nicholas Meyer to tell him as much, and there rests the best testament on the usefulness of speculative fiction. Science fiction it is not, strictly speaking; though it shares many of the elements of a typical post-armageddon movie (something like Panic in Year Zero that was derived from Ward Moore's 'Lot' stories) the intent here was always to inform, not to entertain. In that respect it's more often compared with the BBC's Threads, the unforgettably visceral rendition of the same idea. The Day After depicts the lives of some ordinary families after a Russian nuclear strike on an ICBM silo outside Kansas City; it has a good cast with the only real star at the time being Jason Robards; also there's Steve Guttenberg, John Lithgow, and Bibi Besch (who had played the mother of Kirk's son the previous year in Meyer's Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan), though the most understated and magnetic performance is undoubtedly from John Cullum. Some of the effects are memorable with the best involving matte paintings, though the animated sequences of mushroom clouds and people being vapourised unfortunately now look rather dated. As a made-for-TV film, ABC gave Meyer endless hassles with their imposed and over-sensitive studio editing, all of which made him vow never to work in television ever again, but what he finally wrought was the sort of film that ought to be required viewing for anyone entering American government, a film that quietly screams at you in a very dignified sort of way.