moonspinner55 Review of Rachel, Rachel

Rachel, Rachel (1968)

Tough little drama with jagged bits of fantasy and delusion...

[6/10 · 19 October 2006]

Paul Newman directed his wife Joanne Woodward in this adaptation of Margaret Laurence's book "A Jest of God", and does a pretty good job envisioning the plight of a small town spinster schoolteacher who is aching to break free from a life with no prospects. Newman's inherent good taste (the pastoral town, the neighborly feel) works against the need to show this woman's personal suffocation, and though we can see that romance might bring her happiness, the film is unsatisfactory in tying up this loose end in Rachel's life. Some keenly-shot flights-of-fancy are well-realized by Newman and his editor, although several sequences (such as a church meeting and Woodward's roll in the blankets with James Olson) are allowed to run on too long. Woodward is excellent, as is Estelle Parsons in a memorable turn as Rachel's friend (who is suffering herself, for far different reasons). **1/2 from ****