The Day After

The Day After is an American TV-movie aired in 1983 on the ABC network. The film presented a theoretical situation which led to nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, and its consequences as felt by residents of Lawrence, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri. The film was written by Edward Hume and directed by Nicholas Meyer.

Plot

While the movie contains significant exposition to explain the onset of the war, the plot lies in the human struggles of the characters. The film follows several average citizens and the people they encounter through a nuclear attack on Kansas City, Missouri. Dr. Russell Oakes (Jason Robards) lives in the well-to-do Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City with his wife (Georgann Johnson), and works in a hospital in downtown Kansas City. He is caught in traffic on a highway at the time of the attack (a high-altitude, non-lethal airburst for electromagnetic pulse effects, followed by a deadly ground burst) after meeting with his estranged daughter (Kyle Aletter), and heads toward the hospital after the attack to treat the wounded with Dr. Sam Hachiya (Calvin Jung), Nurse Bauer (JoBeth Williams), and other aid workers. Also represented is farmer Jim Dahlberg (John Cullum) and his family, who live in a rural area far outside the city limits, but very close to a field of missile silos. They are among the first to witness the initial missile launches signaling the start of a full-scale nuclear war. While those near the impact zone die or become sick quickly, the Dahlbergs develop symptoms of radiation sickness slowly, as they had prepared their basement as a makeshift fallout shelter. They also face the looting and chaos that come after the explosion.

Related Topics:
Kansas City, Missouri - Jason Robards - Airburst - Electromagnetic pulse - Ground burst - JoBeth Williams - John Cullum - Radiation sickness - Fallout shelter

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