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.
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.