A Soldier's Sweetheart

Movies that focus on the war in Vietnam now are almost completely forgotten. Well, "A Soldier's Sweetheart" is a different story and how the tale unfolds is remarkable. A soldier named Rat (Kiefer Sutherland) tells the tale that may seem like a tall one of how Fossie (Skeet Ulrich), an lonely army medic whom Rat had worked with a small Army hospital, who had his girlfirend, Marianne (Georgina Cates) flown in. Sutherland and Ulrich are fine here, but Cates steals the show here with a solid performance. A crafty and very unique experience.

Taken at face value this film is a little ridiculous. So don't see it as a war story;see it as an allegory. Here's the deal: GIs really miss the good old USA. They are miserable, stuck in a strange foreign land. One gets the idea of how to bring home to them in the guise of his girl. She arrives and they suddenly feel safe and home again. Note there are none of the expected plot turns such as jealousy and sexual competition. All the guys are happy to have her there;they don't desire her;she makes them happy just by being there. She is the girl next door; the unchanging symbol of the USA, home! Yet, she begins to change; she is "polluted" by mixing with the strange foreign environment they carefully avoid. She becomes different,unsettling in the same way the good old USA is becoming changed by the tumult of the 60s back home. This foreshadows the way the guys will feel when they return home to a strange,now foreign USA. I saw an interview with the director and he described this film as a Vietnam War movie. If that is what he meant it to be it is a really bad one. Try it my way ; it makes much better sense.

This starts out with the feel of kind of a dumb love story (the guy imports his girl from America into Vietnam and she becomes the little sister of the whole squad). But it then becomes about her reaction to the experience of being around war and death and takes some really unexpected turns. Excellent acting by all of the main characters and an ending that leaves you sort of wandering what just happened. A very satisfying movie experience.

"A Soldier's Sweetheart" has Sutherland as a hunkered down Army medic in Vietnam telling an incredible tale to a disbelieving comrade. The tale, which is the bulk of the film, is about his experiences with another soldier (Ulrich) at a sort of mini-MASH outpost who manages to have his civilian sweetheart (real life spouse Cates) from home brought to him "in country" where the pert female finds herself enjoying her unauthorized vacation-of-sorts in war torn Vietnam a little too much. The film plays out as a sort of tall tale as it begs the question is the story fact or fantasy...a question it attempts to answer in the conclusion. An obviously budget conscious made-for-tv flick full of time consuming uneventful filler, the film flows like molasses though it does wax curiously if not interesting if not suspenseful. An okay watch for those into girl power and Vietnam war spook stories. (C+)

I think this is the first movie adaptation of a literary work that so closely and successfully follows its source material in tone and language. Vietnam veteran and author Tim O'Brien's short story occupies that shady ground between truths weirder than fiction and urban legend - and whether it's absolutely true or not really doesn't matter.

The film itself is a simple piece of atmosphere and sketches of character and psyche, with quiet, almost dream-like contrasts of naivete and brutality that drifts around the borders of the medical compound. During a lull in the action and off the front lines, the soldiers of the medical unit are only occasionally confronted with consequences of war, and never with the actuality of it, though it always hangs over their heads, personified by the Green Berets encamped nearby.

The "greenies" are rarely seen and almost never speak, coming and going from their violent encounters in the dark, like some strange mountain spirits. The mystery of the landscape, the war, and the promise of something _different_ seduce and ultimately swallow the "soldier's sweetheart."

The performances are spare and haunting, the premise intriguing, and the story fully captivating.