Watch Rachel, Rachel For Free

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Sorry, Paul Newman, I couldn't stand this movie. Newman directed his wife Joanne Woodward in the title role, and he repeatedly praised her acting, saying at times it was difficult to watch because it was so real. It was hard for me to watch as well, but not for that reason.Rachel, Rachel is about a spinster who lives with her demanding mother. Rachel has never been with a man, and she's terribly depressed at how her life has turned out. While she usually uses her mother as an excuse to stay stuck, when a man shows interest in her, she actually agrees. Is she feeling her ticking clock? Is her sanity about to snap, so she's not thinking clearly? Whatever the reason was for her unusual behavior, I didn't quite understand it.In any case, she's a very depressive and strange person. I didn't like her; I wasn't rooting for her. And I can only imagine how frustrated a modern feminist would be with this story. Why couldn't this woman find any other aspect of her life to improve? I tried hard to appreciate Woodward's performance, despite my intense dislike of her character. The more I tried, the more I couldn't stand her. Since I hardly think that was the intention of the film, I'm not going to recommend this one, unless you're looking for a new favorite worst movie.

exploration of feelings nuances , force of an actress, a gray story, a splendid acting.salted flavor of a life who begins later and one of the greatest role of Joanne Woodward, the precise work of Paul Newman and something else, who seduce and fascinate the viewer.a story of balance between past and present, dream and reality, fear and need to be yourself.its secret - the precision of performance for discover, step by step, the character, the possibility to discover slices from yours existences and the measure of each scene. short, a film about self definition. almost a Madame Bovary version. except the last part. who, in this case, represents its essence. and light ray after a long cloudy period.

Frankly, it appears that mine is a minority opinion. My own favorite story of a lonely woman is SUMMERTIME with Katharine Hepburn which had a lot more flavor as well as a genuinely entertaining and moving story.However, RACHEL, RACHEL drags along at an interminably slow pace with many close-ups of star Joanne Woodward as she reflects on the emptiness of her dull, spinisterish life in a small town. And the script provides no scenes that give us any real hope that things have changed for her by the time we get to the fantasized ending. Most of the scenes are played too long to hold viewer interest.As a result, I found it tedious and somewhat boring at times because nothing of real interest seemed to happen, except in a few flashbacks showing the effect her disturbing childhood had on her upbringing.The acting is competent but I never found the story involving enough to care about the fate of the main character or the few supporting characters for that matter. It fails completely to be anything but a character study of a lonely teacher without the needed dramatic power to make us feel her suffering.

In a variation on her "Long Hot Summer" role, Woodward plays a sexually repressed schoolteacher in a small New England town who realizes that life is passing her by… She is thirty-five, a virgin, and dominated by her mother… During the summer, she has an affair with an old schoolmate… It proves disappointing, but she now knows that she can be loving, and determines to leave town and do something about her life—a move that seems only tentatively hopeful… Woodward gives her finest performance as the confused, frequently beaten but ultimately indestructible woman… She has an extraordinary ability to look natural or simple and still reveal an inner radiance…There are many touching moments: her timidness at the religious meeting; her awkward experiences with men; her late-night discussion with a likable male friend; and, most unforgettable, her face causing change from joyous expectancy to merely suppressed hysteria to a painful outburst of tears when she discovers that, contrary to her hopes, she is not pregnant... Newman shows a natural cinematic sense in his perceptive depictions of small town life, the frenzied activity of a revival meeting and the anxieties of a first sexual experience; and in his clever, rarely impressive juxtaposition of Rachel's present with her fantasies and childhood memories… He gets excellent performances from Estelle Parsons as another lonely teacher and James Olson as the cynical big-city man who lets Rachel down…Both Newman and Woodward won Golden Globe Awards… Woodward won the coveted New York Film Critics' Award, and was nominated for an Oscar