Paul Newman made his directorial debut and Newman's wife,
Joanne Woodward, stars as Rachel Cameron, a 35-year-old unmarried schoolteacher who feels as though she's wasted her life. Rachel's best friend, Calla Mackie (
Estelle Parsons), invites her to attend a religious revival meeting. Here Rachel is swept up in the emotional fervor orchestrated by a young guest preacher (
Terry Kiser). This is the first of several cathartic incidents which convince Rachel to kick over the traces and express her own needs and emotions. She has a brief sexual liaison with an old family friend (
James Olson), and is delighted at the notion that she might have become pregnant. Rachel ends up alone and childless (her "pregnancy" was nothing more than a benign cyst), but still determined to forge a new life for herself. Based the novel A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence, Rachel, Rachel won New York Film Critics awards for both
Joanne Woodward and
Paul Newman, and an Oscar nomination for
Joanne Woodward. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide