Rachel, Rachel

Paul Newman's directing debut adapts Canadian writer Margaret Laurence's 1966 novel A Jest of God, though where the book is set in Manitoba, the film relocates everything to a small Connecticut town. Newman's wife Joanne Woodward plays Rachel, a thirty five year old unmarried schoolteacher living above her late father's former mortuary with her controlling mother. When a man returns from the city and shows an interest in her, Rachel is forced to make decisions about a life that has gone nowhere. The New York Times called it the best written and most seriously acted American film in a long time, and it drew four Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress for Woodward, Best Supporting Actress for Estelle Parsons and Best Adapted Screenplay. It won none of them, and despite the Best Picture nomination Newman himself was passed over for Best Director, one of the more talked about snubs of the year. He did, however, win Best Director from both the New York Film Critics Circle and the Golden Globes. Who it's for: Anyone drawn to quiet portraits of women and curious what an actor does once he steps behind the camera. Who it's not for: Not for viewers wanting a plot driven drama, since the film lives almost entirely inside one woman's interior life.