TV REVIEW : Mixed Results From ‘Looking for Miracles’

“WonderWorks,” the award-winning PBS anthology series, begins a new, two-hour format tonight with an adaptation of A. E. Hotchner’s poignant coming-of-age memoir, “Looking for Miracles” (at 8 on Channel 28 and 15, and Saturday at 6 on Chanel 50).

It’s the height of the Depression and 16-year-old Ryan (Greg Spottiswood) can’t use his college scholarship unless he earns money to augment it. Although unqualified, he finagles a job as head counselor at a boys’ summer camp. The only cloud on his horizon is 9-year-old brother Sullivan (Zachary Bennett): Ryan has to take him along.

The summer brings misadventure and triumph before Ryan is found out, but his leadership role seasons him, and most importantly, he discovers how much his brother means to him.

Joe Flaherty (the “SCTV” veteran, pleasantly playing it straight here), Spottiswood and Patricia Gage, who lends warmth as the camp’s benefactor, receive top billing. But it’s Bennett and young Noah Godfrey as Ratface, a little street tough, who create the emotional resonances.

Directed by Kevin Sullivan (“Anne of Green Gables”), who co-wrote the script with Stuart McLean, this often slow, surface-skimming drama is shaken to life by Ratface, a spitting, sneering, epithet-shouting knot of anger, who sees through Ryan and constantly challenges him.

When Ratface’s angry defenses finally crumble, Godfrey has his finest moments. Meanwhile, Bennett, an expressive and mature child actor, can break your heart with a look or a word. At times, when either of them is on screen, it’s hard to watch anyone else.