Rachel, Rachel

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!

In the turbulent cultural and political year of 1968, movies hadn't quite yet figured out how they wanted to address current events, or indeed whether they wanted to address them at all. The year's Oscar winner for Best Picture was "Oliver!," an entertaining but utterly irrelevant big-budget musical; "Funny Girl," another stage-to-screen musical that hasn't aged at all well, was also among the nominees. "The Lion in Winter" found Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn bickering in period costumes, while "Romeo and Juliet" gave Shakespeare a jolt of sexiness for the younger generation. Movies that actually felt like they had their finger on the uneasy pulse of the changing times, like "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Rosemary's Baby," "Faces," and "The Battle of Algiers," were nominated in lesser categories but none were up for the big prize. That fifth slot went to "Rachel, Rachel," in which Paul Newman directed his wife, Joanne Woodward, to a Best Actress nomination.

"Rachel, Rachel" certainly did not deserve a place at the Oscar podium above those titles just mentioned that weren't even nominated, but it does have much to recommend it, and the themes it's about speak more to a modern-day audience than those of many of its contemporaries, because they're both universal and timeless. Woodward plays a woman in her 30s, living with her annoying and needy mother and watching her life slowly drip away from her day by day. It's about that moment -- and I have to believe anyone over a certain age has experienced it at least to some degree -- where one realizes that he/she isn't so much living a life as dying a slow and inevitable death. What one does with the time in between suddenly becomes urgent in a way it hasn't ever felt before, and one understands how easy it would be to do nothing and let that slow death gradually come. Woodward's character, brought up in a mortuary and morbidly obsessed with death, doesn't exactly figure out what to do with the time left to her, but she does figure out that she needs to try something different, which is perhaps the best any of us can hope for. Woodward gives a beautiful and nuanced performance as a shy turtle coming out of her shell one painful inch at a time. The movie is melancholy and sad, but it's also hopeful in its conclusion that it's never too late to at least make a grab for, if not happiness, then at least contentment.

In addition to its nominations for Best Picture and Best Actress, the film also received nominations for Best Supporting Actress (Estelle Parsons, as Rachel's closet lesbian friend), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Stewart Stern). Newman himself was not nominated for Best Director, which doesn't really surprise me. The Academy has always shown a penchant for acknowledging the showy over the subtle when it comes to that particular category.

Grade: A

This film is one my all time favorites. It's a strong story about a school teacher who lives with her cranky, dominating mother and who hasn't had (or used!) the chance to take responsibility for her own life. Rachel is a woman of many fears; fears that may seem insignificant and vain from an outsiders point of view but that are everything to her, that actually define the framework for her life. In a little town of conservative values it is hard to take a turn and find the courage to become something you weren't before. Joanne Woodward gives a masterful performance and is the heart and soul of this film. She does the most incredible things with just her eyes and her face, and her voice. She makes Rachel so real it hurts to watch. That's acting. Estelle Parsons as Calla is fantastic, too. This is a beautiful, sensitive movie, highly underrated and way too unknown to most people. For me, it's a classic. Go find it and see it!

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.

Joanne Woodward effectively plays a bored and boring middle-aged school teacher who still lives with her mother at a funeral home in Connecticut. She's on the verge of mental collapse, but hides it well and pretends everything's okay. A guy from her childhood comes to town from the big city (James Olson) and her appetite for change comes to the fore.

This potent drama was Paul Newman's first stab at directing and it's the best cinematic depiction of the inward struggle of flesh and spirit -- id and superego -- I've ever seen. This struggle explains why it's called "Rachel, Rachel." Rachel is experiencing the undercurrent conflict between spiritual and carnal impulses. She's stuck between goody-goody Rachel and libertine Rachel and is therefore in living limbo. Various outside factors encourage this lifeless state: Disturbing childhood memories of living in a funeral home, a mother who essentially views Rachel as her personal servant and a genuine friend who's love is starting to become unhealthy (Estelle Parsons).

The film features a mind-blowing pentecostal church sequence that lasts 10-12 minutes. I can't believe Newman had the cojones to include this scene and it's pulled off expertly with Terry Kiser as the guest preacher who "speaks in tongues," which is what Calla (Parsons) tells Rachel when it's reveal that he's the speaker. Parsons is fabulous here, by the way.

Due to the subject matter and the fact that this is a drama there are some boring stretches, so you have to be in the mood for a serious drama. Nevertheless, the film deserves credit for having the gonads to show real life and refusing to be politically correct -- an amazing drama.

In case you didn't know, Newman and Woodward were husband & wife for 50 years, up to his death in 2008.

The film runs 101 minutes and was shot in Connecticut.

GRADE: A-