89 Days of Oscar Nominees – #36 – Rachel, Rachel (1968)

In my attempt to have a more prolific repertoire of Oscar Nominated Films, I have taken it upon myself to watch 89 new Best Picture Nominees that I’ve never seen before between 1 Dec 2016 and The 89th Annual Oscars on 26 Feb 2017.

Here is my 36th review of the 89 chosen Films…

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“I’m exactly in the middle of my life. This is my last… ascending summer. Everything else from now on is just rolling downhill into my grave. “- Rachel

Number of Times Seen – 1 (3 Jan 2017)

Brief Synopsis – A 30-something school teacher has an awakening at a religious meeting and begins to realize that it’s not too late to express herself in life.

My Take on it – This is yet another film that I knew nothing about before watching.

The first thing I notced was that this film was a collaboration between real life couple Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman (who directed the film).

Woodward does a great job of capturing the feelings of her character both before and after her awakening.

The story itself tho is a roller coaster ride and jumps around too much to be effective enough in the ong run.

They do a fine job in the way that they explore an awakening in a soul and we subsequently get to see some of the dreams that begin to surface once she realizes she is allowed to think and act for herself.

Unfortunately, this film doesn’t manage to evoke enough enthusiasm that I had expected from the Newman-Woodward combo.

Bottom Line – Woodward is great here, but the story gets a bit to weird for my taste along the way.  Liked the way they explored a woman’s awakening from a closed off individual without any prospects or desires for the future into a dreamer.  Overall, this film feels quite average and doesn’t evoke enough enthusiasm as I had hoped from Woodward and Newman (who directed it).

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The uncredited baby on the beach with Rachel at the end of the film is Claire Newman then age 2 who’s face is never shown because she was crying through most of the scene because the waves lapping against the coast scared her due to the fact she didn’t yet know how to swim. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy

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