Cinema: A Stitch in Time

IN COUNTRY Directed by Norman Jewison

Screenplay by Frank Pierson and Cynthia Cidre

Viet Nam represents a great jagged gash in the fabric of American history, an ugly tear in a tapestry that people once believed had been woven out of high ideals and simple decency. A few years ago, when it became obvious that it was time to repair that rent, our popular culture took on something of the air of a vast quilting bee, with writers, filmmakers and TV producers bending over their restorative needlework.

Samantha Hughes (Emily Lloyd) of In Country, an adaptation of the novel by Bobbie...