Plot

Rachel is a lonely school teacher who lives with her mother. When a man from the big city asks her out, she starts thinking about where she wants her life to go.

Thirty-five year old spinster and virgin Rachel Cameron is a sad, lonely woman. She lives in the small town of Japonica, Connecticut where she grew up. She teaches second grade at Japonica Elementary School and lives with her highly demanding widowed mother (her funeral director father passed away fourteen years ago) in the same apartment above a funeral home where she grew up, despite the home now not being owned by them. Rachel often uses her mother as an excuse not to do things. Rachel represses her emotions, and is prone to daydreaming to envision alternate paths for herself in certain situations if she only had the nerve to do those things. Even when Nick Kazlik, a childhood acquaintance who has returned to Japonica for a summer visit with his family, makes it clear that he wants to have fun with her while he's in town, she can't act on his request out of fear of the unknown. But after a couple of incidents with her only real friend Calla Mackie, who is a fellow teacher at the school, Rachel begins to allow herself more freedom. But as Rachel's repressions slowly melt away, how her emotions will manifest themselves becomes the question.—Huggo

Rachel Cameron is in her mid-30s, single and living with her mother. She lives an insular, lonely existence, her thoughts plagued by doubts, fantasies and memories. This seems set to be her lot in life until she meets Nick and they start a relationship. Maybe her life has turned a corner?—grantss

Rachel Cameron (Joanne Woodward) is a shy, 35-year-old spinster schoolteacher living with her widowed mother in a small apartment above a funeral home that was once owned by her late father in a small town in Connecticut. Haunted by memories of her unhappy childhood and her mortician father, Rachel spends each frustrating day taking care of her mother and working with the schoolchildren. School is soon let out for summer vacation and Rachel figures it will just be another lonely and boring summer for her. (It's implied that she may even hate summer as her job provided somewhat of an escape from her domineering mother who's always trying to compare her to her sister, who married a successful businessman in Boston.)

Rachel's closest friend is Calla Mackie (Estelle Parsons), a fellow unmarried teacher who persuades her to attend a revival meeting, where a visiting preacher, named Reverend Wood, encourages Rachel to express her need for the love of Jesus Christ. Rachel is overwhelmed by God's grace, baring so much pent-up emotion, that she is humbled after the service. While comforting Rachel, Calla suddenly begins to kiss Rachel passionately. (It is never explained if Calla is a lesbian, bisexual, or if she merely reacted to the emotion of the moment.) Rachel's reaction is to withdraw from the friendship for the time being.

Note: Brief daydreaming sequences of the adult Rachel also appear, including those showing her imagining seizing a stolen moment with the school's possibly sexual-harassing principal; taking an under-loved boy in her classroom home with her; and rocking an expected baby in a park while children play nearby.

Rachel realizes that only by exposing herself to life is the way she can she experience it. She therefore gives herself to a former high school friend, named Nick Kazlik (James Olsen), who is in town for a visit with his parents which she and he sleep together after first meeting. Mistaking her first sexual encounter for love, she fantasizes about a future with Nick. Her hopes are shattered, however, when Nick, put off by her seriousness, abruptly ends their affair.

A short time later, Rachel discovers that she may be pregnant. Determined to accept the consequences of her actions, she decides to go away and have the child. After Calla has helped her find a teaching post in Oregon, Rachel learns that her pregnancy is merely a cyst requiring minor surgery. After undergoing surgery to have the cyst removed, she tells her mother, in the hospital, that she has decided to relocate, and that her mother may accompany her or not, as she wishes. Her mother quickly agrees to go, in a way that suggests she realizes her dependence on Rachel and perhaps even will take her less for granted from now on. Rachel sets out with hope for the future, having learned that she has choices, that she is able to give and receive sexual pleasure, that it is possible for her to take on life actively, rather than wait for it to find her. In the final scene, as Rachel leaves town with her somewhat reluctant mother and looks for the last time at the familiar sights of her home town, she speculates on what the future may bring.