RACHEL, RACHEL (1968)
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 101 Minutes
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Director: Paul Newman
Cast: Joanne Woodward, James Olson, Kate Harrington, Estelle Parsons, Donald Moffat
Paul Newman's sneakily low-key directorial debut was the introspective character study Rachel, Rachel (1968) starring his wife Joanne Woodward (The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds) as a 35-year-old rural Connecticut schoolteacher named Rachel, a plaintive wallflower who lives with her widowed mother (Kate Harrington, The Sentinel) in a small upstairs apartment above the funeral parlor that was previously operated by her late father (Donald Moffat, The Thing). The film opens with Rachel waking up in a position that looks like a corpse in a coffin pose, flat on her back with arms folded on her chest. She then walks to the school she teaches at, along the way we hear her inner monologue as she fantasizes about being stared at by scornful town folk who stare at her exposed slip before she collapses to the ground and is carried off in a stretcher. She then snaps back to reality, it's just an ordinary stroll to school but her mind imagines these strange things, the repressed spinster-to-be continuing in with her daily routine at school, where its the last day before summer break.
Her only friend is fellow schoolteacher Calla (Estelle Parsons, Bonnie and Clyde) who notes her friend's lack of self confidence, true enough, and later invites Rachel to a church revival, which she attends. During the services the preacher (Terry Kiser, Weekend At Bernie's) lays hands on her, imploring her to express her love and need of Jesus, which causes her to have an pent-up emotional outpouring that embarrasses her to the point that she flees the church. She is followed outside by Calla, who while attempting to comfort her unexpectedly kisses her on the mouth, her closeted lesbian friend's display of passion startling Rachel who runs home.
The next day while visiting the local pharmacy/soda bar Rachel encounter a former schoolmate Nick Kazlik (James Olson, Amityville II: The Possession) who is visiting from the city. We are shown in flashback that Nick's twin brother died when they were kids and brought to the mortuary, where Rachel spied in her father in the process of embalming him which had quite an effect on the young girl. Nick makes a ham-fisted pass at her which she rebuffs, but eventually she agrees to a movie date. Starved for attention, human connection and still a virgin, Rachel is seduced by Nick's considerable charm and experiences her first sexual encounter with him. Over the course of several weeks they continue to see each other, the experience opening her up to future possibilities away from her mother and outside of her small Connecticut hometown.
The film was Oscar nominated in several categories (actor, director, screenplay) but it was passed over and has since slipped into the vault of cinema obscurity, at least for me; I'd never heard of it till Warner Archive announced it, but what a gem it is. An artfully low-key and deeply nuanced character study of a lonely woman in a small-town who is awoken to new possibilities when the status quo of her quiet life is pulled back for a brief moment. Woodward is absolutely phenomenal in the title role, conveying a wide-range of subtle and evolving emotions with very little action, her mindset brought to life by her inner-monologues, imagined fears and desires, and subtle physical performance tell the tale of a woman on the verge of withering away on the vine, but managing to bloom late in life when finally sprinkled with a bit of affection.
Audio/Video: Rachel, Rachel (1968) arrives on Blu-ray in 1080p HD widescreen (1.85:1) with a new 2022 4K scan of the OCN and it looks simply gorgeous. We get lush grain with copious fine detail, warm well-saturated colors and organic textures throughout. Audio comes by way of uncompressed English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles. It's clean, well-balanced and has some nice depth to it, including the subtle but effective score from Jerome Moross (The Valley of Gwangi). Extras are pretty slim, we get a silent 2-min behind-the-scenes featurette and a 2-min trailer for the film. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original movie poster.
Special Features:
- A Jest of God (silent) (2 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (3 min)
Rachel, Rachel (1968) is quite an introspective gem, if you're into haunting cinema that voyeurs into fractured inner workings of the lonely and dissatisfied, along the lines of disparate films like Let's Scare Jessica To Death or The Swimmer, this gem might be a new-favorite discovery waiting for you to come upon it. This is certainly one of my favorite film discoveries from Warner Archive this year, an absolutely wonderful watch that lingered with me for days after my first viewing.
Screenshots from the Warner Archive Blu-ray:
