Rachel, Rachel

For Paul Newman's directorial debut, a property was chosen that was a real star vehicle for his spouse Joanne Woodward. In a distinctly unglamorous part, Rachel Rachel is about a 30 something spinster schoolteacher who lives with her perpetually sick mother and yearns to have something more out of life. She's inexperienced in a whole lot of different ways.

The script written by Stewart Stern which did receive an Oscar nomination uses the technique of Eugene O'Neill perfected on stage and screen in Strange Interlude. It's confined in this star vehicle to the lead character of Woodward. We get to hear her inner thoughts and see them acted out in her drab existence.

Looming in front of her consciousness is her unseen sister who did leave the nest and got married and started a family of her own. Mother Kate Harrington always uses that example to berate Woodward. At the same time Woodward must not entertain thoughts of leaving mother. The two live above a funeral parlor that was once her father Donald Moffat's business, but now has been taken over by Frank Corsaro who lets them stay on the premises. Not exactly an atmosphere to encourage romance of any kind.

After a night on the town with James Olson who quite frankly was just looking to make an easy score on a sex starved spinster, Woodward has to make a few life altering decisions.

Rachel Rachel got 3 other Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Actress for Joanne Woodward and Best Supporting Actress for Estelle Parsons. Parsons has an interesting role herself as fellow teacher and confidante to Woodward. She's got herself wrapped in some fundamentalist church which serves as her vehicle for a social life. But that is far from Woodward's scene.

Purportedly Woodward was miffed that husband Newman got no nomination for Best Director. But I think the one who really should have been miffed is Kate Harrington. A veteran of a couple TV soap operas this was clearly her big screen career role. And she's really the only one who matches Woodward in any scene they're in. She definitely should have gotten some Academy recognition.

Rachel Rachel is a fine character study and a great vehicle for Joanne Woodward. And having it filmed in and around Paul and Joanne's Connecticut home must have been a blessing for both of them.

I saw "Rachel, Rachel" early one summer morning on cable. I woke up in the dark and turned the television on and the film began. I was hypnotized. The movie is so honest, and moving, and true that I thought I was still dreaming.

I grew up in Connecticut, and several of my aunts were schoolteachers, so I can tell you that every moment in the film is absolutely true. Paul Newman gets everything right... the repressed woman who is still under her mother's control, the judgmental small-town, the wild children, even the sound of the heat bugs on the country road! Joanne Woodward is absolutely mesmerizing as a woman lost in the shuffle, doing everything everyone wants her to and dying in the process...

This movie is not for everyone. There are no explosions or car crashes or digitally-animated comic book characters. But if you would like to see a genuine "slice-of-life" along the lines of "Midnight Cowboy" or even "The Graduate," then "Rachel, Rachel" is a film that will move you and make you think. Definitely worth seeking out.

Grade: A-

This small, naturalistic film is one of the more honest films to come out of Hollywood. Its portrait of unexceptional lives strikes chords most movies never hear. Woodward and Harrington are superb, and under husband Paul Newman's direction, Woodward gives what is probably her finest performance. Newman has done a first rate job, and his use of photographed thought is particularly effective thanks in large part to Dede Allen's superb editing. The scene at the revival is ,perhaps, overdone but, the rest of the film feels true to life. The film's integrity is in its refusal to romanticize or provide dramatic climaxes. There are no heroes or villains, nothing remarkable happens, yet the film is holding and affecting and it should have been on the AFI's list of The 100 Greatest American Films. It deservedly received Oscar nods for best picture and actress, but director Newman was not nominated. Both the New York Film Critics and the Hollywood Foreign Press (Golden Globes) awarded Newman and Woodward. A gem!

Both the camera and the man behind it were obviously in love with the actress on screen, and, that actress, Joanne Woodward, was arguably never better than she was in "Rachel, Rachel," husband-Paul-Newman's first directing effort. The low-key story involves a woman who reaches the middle of her life and realizes that she has yet to start living. Trapped in a small apartment above a funeral parlor with her whining possessive mother, Rachel is a schoolteacher with daydreams of having a life and children of her own.

Rachel's emotions are written on Woodward's face in a way few actresses have ever conveyed feeling. Words are superfluous, because the actress's subtle shifts of expression reveal the woman's raw vulnerability and, eventually, her sexual and emotional awakening. A course in film acting could be taught with this film as the primer. Although Kate Harrington, James Olson, and Estelle Parsons provide able support, the film is Woodward's showcase, and Newman's sturdy direction does not detract from his star. The shifts between Rachel's present and her memories and dreams are seamless, clear, and illuminating rather than distracting.

The film requires patience, but that does not imply boring, but rather leisurely paced, much like life in a small town that lies off the main roads. Getting to know another person requires time, and Rachel is worth knowing. "Rachel, Rachel" is a not to be missed minor masterwork with a performance that will haunt and linger in memory indefinitely. Newman never surpassed his directing here, and few actresses have surpassed Woodward's achievement either.

Based on the novel "A Jest of God" by Canadian novelist Margaret Laurence, "Rachel, Rachel" is the story of Rachel Cameron (beautifully played by Joanne Woodward), a middle-aged schoolteacher who tries to come out of her shell before it's too late. Her father, recently deceased, was the town's funeral director. She still lives at home with her demanding mother (Kate Harrington). Rachel's friend is Calla Mackie (Estelle Parsons), an equally lonely, repressed fellow teacher who has some issues in her life as well. Rachel has a chance on love when a man (James Olson) returns to the small town in Connecticut from NYC. Rachel has some difficulty handling emotions she's never felt before. She's still haunted by her past and has difficulty coping with reality and fantasy. As Rachel mentioned at the beginning of the film, she's middle-aged, she's lived half of her life, what can she do now?

This was Paul Newman's debut as director. He did a fine job directing his wife Joanne Woodward. He captured the loneliness of this woman without overdoing it as well as the atmosphere of living in a small town that is alternately comfortable and suffocating.

I was also impressed with the supporting cast. Including Estelle Parsons, Kate Harrington and James Olson, Donald Moffat as Rachel's very scary father and two very charismatic performances by Geraldine Fitzgerald as the local reverend and Terry Kiser as a traveling faith healer.

Although it received four Oscar nominations, "Rachel, Rachel" seems to have fallen off the radar screen. Some of the movies that were released in 1968 included "The Lion in Winter", "Funny Girl", "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Romeo and Juliet" and "Planet of the Apes".

"Rachel, Rachel", a mature, well-acted drama, certainly should be considered one of the more under-appreciated films of the late 1960s.