‘The Heidi Chronicles’

In the TV-movie based on Wendy Wasserstein’s 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Jamie Lee Curtis (pictured) stars as Heidi Holland in a role that takes her from the intellectual optimism of a mid-’60s high school graduation to a late-’80s, coming-to-grips acknowledgment of the world as it is. Holland is a kind of Everywoman of the period, passing through the tidal changes of feminist epiphany, the Vietnam War, the presidential election of 1968, the Nixon resignation and the spirit-wracking impact of John Lennon’s death. It is a character that could easily have become too loaded with symbolism to seem real. But Curtis--in a splendid, career-boosting display of craft and skill--creates a Heidi who is simultaneously complex, empathetic and believable (KTLA Saturday at 11:30 p.m.).