Threads can be seen as the far more graphic, British counterpart to The Day
After which came out around the same time. It follows the formula, with the run
up to the war, the horrific war itself, and then the aftermath. The film centers
on the people of Sheffield, which is not only the site
of an important military base, but the name of a Royal navy ship that was sunk
during the then recent Falklands War. The story centers around the soon to be
married Jimmy Kemp, played by Reece Dinsdale, and Ruth Beckett, played by Karen
Meagher. Of course, their plans looks to be interrupted by increasing tensions
brought on by a Soviet invasion of Iran,
which is being countered by the United States,
Great Britain,
and NATO. As the world careens inexorably toward war, with panic runs on
stores, anti nuclear protests, and people in denial, the young couple decides
to get married sooner rather than later. There may not be time later.
The sequence in which the war takes place is one of the most graphic ever
shown on television. An emergency working group cowers in an underground bunker
as the missiles strike one by one. People are burned alive by the thermal
blast. People vomit their guts out as the radioactive fallout hits.
And then, civilization quickly breaks down, as the threads (hence the title)
of society break asunder. The last scene happens years after the war, in a
nightmare landscape in which barbarism reigns, when the daughter of Kemp and
Beckett now has to give birth to a child of rape, alone and unaided.