Artivels Undescribable Perfection

Steineded How sad is this?

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

SnoopyStyle This is Paul Newman's directorial debut starring his wife Joanne Woodward. Rachel is a spinster school teacher. She's shy, emotionally damaged, and stuck with her mother. Then an old acquaintance's visit sets off a chain of emotional breakdowns.It's a bit of experimental filmmaking from Paul Newman. I'm not a fan of his directing. It doesn't build drama and it's very disjointed. The story doesn't flow. Luckily, Joanne Woodward is such a compelling actress. She's able to hold the attention despite the lack of skills with the camera.There are a few powerful scenes where certain unexpected things happen. Those are great scenes and the movie works great at the end. I only wish that those scenes were linked together by a better movie. It's still a worthwhile watch.

Neil Doyle Frankly, it appears that mine is a minority opinion. My own favorite story of a lonely woman is SUMMERTIME with Katharine Hepburn which had a lot more flavor as well as a genuinely entertaining and moving story.However, RACHEL, RACHEL drags along at an interminably slow pace with many close-ups of star Joanne Woodward as she reflects on the emptiness of her dull, spinisterish life in a small town. And the script provides no scenes that give us any real hope that things have changed for her by the time we get to the fantasized ending. Most of the scenes are played too long to hold viewer interest.As a result, I found it tedious and somewhat boring at times because nothing of real interest seemed to happen, except in a few flashbacks showing the effect her disturbing childhood had on her upbringing.The acting is competent but I never found the story involving enough to care about the fate of the main character or the few supporting characters for that matter. It fails completely to be anything but a character study of a lonely teacher without the needed dramatic power to make us feel her suffering.

ferbs54 During the course of their 50-year marriage (1958-2008), Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward appeared in 10 films together, and in 1968, Newman directed the first film of his career, "Rachel, Rachel." Although he would go on to produce and/or direct 11 more, only five of those dozen featured his wife in front of the camera: "Rachel, Rachel," "They Might Be Giants," "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" (a film that, like "Rachel, Rachel," featured the Newmans' cute little daughter, Nell Potts), "The Shadow Box" (a TV movie) and "The Glass Menagerie." Their initial pairing as director/star shows what formidable talents the couple wielded both behind and in front of the camera. In "Rachel, Rachel," we meet a shy, 35-year-old schoolteacher, Rachel Cameron. Rachel is only really half alive when we first encounter her at the beginning of her latest summer break. Still a virgin, Rachel spends most of her time caring for her nagging, widowed mother. We are told that she only eats vanilla ice cream, and the fact of her semiexistence is driven home by the fact that she lives above a funeral parlor, of all places! The film allows us into her inner thought processes, and we realize that she has suicidal fantasies that she herself characterizes as "morbid." She feels that she is at the exact middle of her life, and that this is her last "ascending summer." During the course of the film, we see that a revival meeting at a church cannot get Rachel "reborn," and are happy when the lonely woman enters into her first sexual relationship, with an old acquaintance visiting from out of town. Predictably, though, long-term happiness is a tenuous proposition at best...."Rachel, Rachel" is a wonderfully realistic, mature and adult film. Newman's direction is sensitive and assured, especially for a beginner, and the supporting players (most particularly James Olson as Nick, the new man in Rachel's life, and Oscar-nominated Estelle Parsons as Rachel's lesbian gal pal, Calla) are all very fine. But it is Joanne Woodward who most certainly holds the film together. She is simply superb here, as the attractive but diffident Rachel. Hers is a wonderfully well-modulated performance, making for a completely well-rounded character. Rachel is depressed and lonely, yes, but also capable of a certain steeliness and very real humor. And those interior monologues and fantasies previously mentioned help us to really understand the poor woman, and what makes her tick. Woodward most certainly did deserve her Oscar nomination for her work in this film, but just could not prevail at the awards ceremony against Katharine Hepburn and the force of Nature known as Barbra Streisand. The actress makes us feel the heartbreak of Rachel's situation over and over. Among the most heartbreaking moments: Rachel walks into her bedroom, after assisting at her mother's weekly bridge game, and spontaneously starts to sob; Rachel compulsively admits her love to her new boyfriend, and her desire for a child, while Nick looks on in discomfort; Rachel gets the news about her "pregnancy" at the hospital; and, most especially, Rachel sits on a bus, at the film's end, en route to a new life in a new town, and ponders the fact that she might always be frightened and lonely. Rachel is a wonderful woman who would most likely make most guys happy, and the viewer is left with optimistic hopes for her. (Too bad a sequel for this film was never made!) In a picture filled with so much sadness, at least Newman & Co. leave us with an uplifting finale of sorts. Only...I would feel a lot more sanguine about Rachel's future if she'd just left her darn mother behind....

mark.waltz What some people might call a TV like movie, "Rachel, Rachel" was made before TV movies were becoming the place for slice-of-life dramas and character studies of troubled people. But when you've got Paul Newman as director, and his real-life wife Joanne Woodward playing a small town New England school teacher who is facing her problems of loneliness, that's made for the big screen, and "Rachel, Rachel" was one of 1968's most anticipated dramas. From the beginning, Rachel is not a conventional movie heroine. She is attractive, if not beautiful, and has a prim, if not frumpy, look to her. She also fantasizes quite a bit. Walking down the street on her way to school, she fears her slip is showing and that everyone is staring at her. She tells a boy that the principal is waiting to speak to her, then fantasizes about asking him to come home with her. She fantasizes about her lover (James Olson), and has flashbacks to her childhood with her undertaker father (Donald Moffat). Her now aging mother (Kate Harrington, in a beautiful performance) dominates her without being nasty, but it is obvious that she would like to escape from her.It is obvious that Rachel is an insecure lady who doesn't feel right in her place on earth, and when she decides to have an affair with Olson without marriage, she feels insecure as a lover and hopes she'll do better the next time. It says a lot about her feelings of despair when she is confronted by her mother, or a schoolteacher friend (the always excellent Estelle Parsons) who has more than feelings of friendship for her. Fresh off her performance as Blanche in "Bonnie and Clyde", Parsons is less shrill and more down to earth, yet equally troubled. The scene in the Evangelist church with Geraldine Fitzgerald (looking beautiful in her brief time on screen) and Terry Kiser (as the preacher) is excellent. There are few moments of 60's sub-realism, mainly in Woodward's fantasies, which are downplayed compared to most late 60's films that almost seemed acid laced in their photography and editing.1968 was a tough year for the Best Actress category at the Oscars; Woodward was nominated against Barbra Streisand, Katharine Hepburn, Vanessa Redgrave, and Patricia Neal, who all gave exciting performances. It's one of those few years where each of the actresses was equal and one wishes that each of them could take home the award. This is a dignified drama of self-awakening that doesn't always happen when one is young; Sometimes it happens again and again as we shed old temptations or habits, toss aside friends who stifle us, or move to a new community to get a new grip on where life is taking us.