Avis Metacritic

From the comical Estelle Parsons, to the charming James Olson, Rachel, Rachel is superbly outfitted by a range of talent, all of whom ground the occasionally melodramatic film. Still, it’s clear that Rachel, Rachel’s critical success is largely owed to its lead.

Offbeat and painfully real, Rachel, Rachel fits firmly in with films of the era like Five Easy Pieces and I Never Sang For My Father…not bad company to be in.

It is in the transcendent strength of Joanne Woodward that the film achieves a classic stature. There is no gesture too minor for her to master.

Rachel, Rachel...is a real Movie movie, a little sappy at moments, but the best written, most seriously acted American movie in a long time.

Newman's direction is quiet and unfussy, and the film's plainness only enhances its clarity, but he also makes room for some unexpected humor and (in Rachel's death-haunted reveries) touches of macabre poetry. No less than Newman, Woodward resists melodrama at every turn, and she makes a familiar character more complicated than first impressions suggest. [15 Feb 2009, p.E10]

Without flaw, Woodward delivers her character’s need for change with authenticity and a sense of progression.

It could have been a drab, weepy story, but Stern and Newman collaborated to make it an inspiring one that proves one is never too old to change one's life.

While in no way as powerful as Barbara Loden's Wanda, Newman's film none the less captures the quiet desperation of enforced life in sleepytown America.

Rachel, Rachel is a low-key melodrama starring Joanne Woodward as a spinster awakening to life. Produced austerely by Paul Newman, who also directs with an uncertain hand, it marks Newman's feature debut in these non-acting capacities. Offbeat film moves too slowly to an upbeat, ironic climax.