After a start in the low-budget world of Roger Corman, Francis Ford Coppola slowly worked his way into “major studio” flicks through the second half of the 1960s. For his final entry before his massive breakthrough via 1972’s The Godfather, we head to 1969’s The Rain People.

A Long Island housewife named Natalie Ravenna (Shirley Knight) resides with husband Vinny (Robert Modica). When she becomes pregnant, Natalie starts to re-evaluate her situation.

Unsure if she feels she can handle the demands of motherhood, Natalie sets out on a road trip. This leads her on a cross-country journey during which she explores her emotions and decides where she wants her life to go.

Boy, if that doesn’t sound like a late 1960s plot, what does? A time of social and cultural upheaval, many questioned the norms and looked inward to examine their essential desires.

Which seems like a good idea, even if these concepts may’ve gone too far in the opposite directions during the 1970s. Often referred to as the “Me Decade”, that period featured an emphasis on self-satisfaction to the omission of most else.

Even without these developments, the theme of Rain means that many movies of this era can feel more than a little dated. 1969’s seminal Easy Rider probably acts as the most notable example of this genre, and God knows it definitely comes across as a product of this period.

I’d feel tempted to regard Rain as an Easy Rider wannabe if the timelines didn’t dictate otherwise. Both shot in 1968 so Rain sat in the can well before Rider ever became a hit.

As my review of it indicates, it took me years to warm up to Rider. Its self-indulgence so overwhelmed my viewpoint that it took multiple screenings before I could see its deeper facets.

Perhaps if I watch Rain half a dozen times, I will find some charms in it. After an initial viewing, however, it just comes across as a rambling and dull mess.

No, I don’t demand every movie come with a tight, concise narrative. However, I do want to watch films that feel like they take me somewhere.

Which Rain doesn’t. On the surface, it appears to deliver a form of “coming of age” tale in which the lead gains new experiences and grows, but in reality, it simply provides a plodding travelogue without much real substance.

It seems remarkable that Paramount looked at Rain and decided to hand over Godfather to Coppola. I can find few hints of the concise, well-structured storytelling of Godfather in this muddled mess.

Admittedly, both movies enjoy very different goals, as Rain never pretends to really revolve around plot domains. As noted, it becomes a character-based tale that follows Natalie’s evolution.

Or her theoretical evolution, as she doesn’t ever seem to change a whole lot. Yeah, I guess the Natalie of the film’s end comes to some realizations absent at the start, but none of these feel especially full or compelling.

Instead, Natalie starts as whiny and self-absorbed and she largely ends as whiny and self-absorbed. Much of the story relates to her connection to Jimmy “Killer” Kilgallon (James Caan), a former college football star who suffered from a traumatic brain injury that left him cognitively impaired.

Needy and unable to really care for himself, Killer acts as a clumsy metaphor for the baby Natalie seems unsure she wants. We see her attempts to rid herself of Killer and the aftermath of these choices.

That sounds like it could help develop Natalie in provocative ways, but instead, she just continues to feel annoying and manipulative. I appreciate that Knight never contorts the role as written to make the audience love Natalie, but I still think that a movie about such an off-putting character ends up as… well, off-putting.

Of course, movies about less than likable roles can work fine – as long as they intrigue us. Natalie doesn’t, as her self-absorption and various cloying habits turns her into a persistent annoyance.

Caan makes Killer more engaging, even if he exists mainly as a plot device. We also find Robert Duvall as a sexually aggressive highway cop – in another clumsy metaphor to represent Natalie’s horny husband – and he does fine in that underwritten part.

None of this leads to a narrative that draws in the viewer for 102 minutes, unfortunately, and Rain People wears out its welcome well before the end credits roll. Given its place in Coppola’s career, I feel happy I watched it, but unlike Easy Rider, I don’t anticipate I’ll want to give it additional chances to grow on me.

The Rain People appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a good representation of a potentially challenging source.

I say “potentially challenging” because this Blu-ray represented my initial screening of the film so I lacked any reference of how the movie looked in other incarnations. This questionable side mainly related to sharpness, which felt softer than one would generally anticipate.

Much of this seemed intentional, especially because Rain often used shallow depth of field. It didn’t take much shift in terms of the camera’s subject for the image to turn tentative.

This didn’t result in a persistently ill-defined movie, as much of the flick offered reasonably positive delineation. Still, Rain came with many more soft spots than one would generally anticipate, and given the high standards I associate with Warner Archive releases, I’ll assume these elements represented the source.

I noticed no jagged edges or shimmering, and no edge enhancement occurred. Print flaws caused no problems.

Colors looked fine, as they often appeared clear and accurate. The movie didn’t offer a broad palette, as it preferred subdued earthy tones and blue-greens much of the time, but the hues were positive within those parameters.

Black levels also worked well, as they demonstrated depth and richness, and shadow detail looked appropriate. All the softness meant I didn’t find myself comfortable with a picture grade over a “B”, but I continue to feel confident the Blu-ray accurately reproduced the original photography.

As for the movie’s DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack, it seemed more than adequate for a character drama from 1969. Speech seemed fairly natural and firm, with no issues connected to intelligibility or edginess.

Effects lacked much range, but they lacked problems with distortion and seemed acceptably concise. Score and songs delivered reasonable punch and clarity. Nothing about the audio excelled, but it became perfectly adequate for a flick of this one’s age and ambitions.

No extras appear on the Blu-ray.

In 1972, Francis Ford Coppola emerged as a filmmaking legend with The Godfather. In 1969, he directed a tedious “art house” character drama called The Rain People that lacks depth or drama and just becomes a slow ride to nowhere. The Blu-ray offers appropriate picture and audio but it lacks bonus materials. Rain People merits a look given its place in Coppola’s career but it never becomes anything more than dull.