Love Heals Couple’s Wounds in ‘Soldier’

Numbed by war’s atrocities, a nurse and her charge--a man with amnesia--find sanctuary in each other’s company, and as the man pieces together his past, the aggrieved nurse begins to feel whole again, too.

“The Unknown Soldier,” the two-part “Masterpiece Theatre” presentation airing this Sunday and next on KCET, bears an uncanny resemblance to the 1996 best picture Oscar winner, “The English Patient,” though it isn’t nearly as mysterious or seductive. Even if there weren’t such a powerful precedent with which to compare it, “The Unknown Soldier” wouldn’t stand well on its own; it’s wobbly and sometimes baffling as it struggles to sustain itself for three hours.

The story begins in spring 1918, as World War I slogs through its fourth bloody year. Wounded British soldiers from the French front are being sent back to England to convalesce at country estates converted into hospitals. Sophia Carey (Juliet Aubrey) has remained at her father’s estate to head the rehabilitation program there.

When she locks eyes with an arriving soldier (Gary Mavers), who has been nicknamed Angel by the unit that found him wandering nude and mute in no man’s land, she is instantly smitten. Something about the handsome stranger reminds her of her three brothers lost to the war, particularly the youngest.

Better in intent than execution, Peter Barwood’s screenplay is wrapped up in memory--the soldier’s and nurse’s attempts to come to terms with their pasts, as well as, in a much larger sense, the world’s collective memory of war and its overwhelming human cost.

* “The Unknown Soldier” airs Sunday and Nov. 8 at 9 p.m. on KCET. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).