The Shawshank Redemption
Category
Drama
Director
Frank Darabont
Cast
- Tim Robbins
- Morgan Freeman
- Bob Gunton
- William Sadler
- Clancy Brown
- Gil Bellows
- Mark Rolston
- James Whitmore
Release Date
10 September 1994
Synopsis
What's most striking about this acclaimed 1994 movie from writer-director Frank Darabont is the humanity that you witness in it. Steadfast, capricious, frail, strong and all the other nuances in between. Very few movies are able to show you, powerfully, movingly, how being in an institution like a prison for decades can change someone; and not in any expected way. And very few movies succeed at telling a story that's quite improbable -- outrageous, even -- and still seem to remain so real.
The story begins when Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a banker, is sent to prison for the death of his wife and her lover. Andy says he is innocent but he gets locked up anyway because of circumstantial evidence. "Everybody's innocent in here," Red (Morgan Freeman), a Shawshank old-timer, tells Andy. Red is the prison's go-to guy for anything, cigarettes, posters, anything. Andy's first night in the joint cost Red two packs of cigarettes. They become good friends anyway.
It was tough for Andy at first but as soon as his banking skills are put to use by the warden and the rest in Shawshank, inmates and non-inmates, prison life for him decidedly got better. The warden, by the way, is a crook who is using Andy to embezzle funds.
Based on the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, Shawshank Redemption follows Andy through two decades of brutal, inhuman treatment. The physical and emotional cruelty stripped the inmates of whatever piece of dignity they have. Well, except for one inmate -- Andy. It seems that no amount of physical abuse and mental torture can touch him. "That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?" Andy tells Red after he sneaked in and played opera music on the prison PA.
"There are places in this world that aren't made out of stone," Andy continues. "That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours." It's hope. And it's the thing that kept Andy and the entire movie going. Some reviewers have described the film, with its themes of hope and redemption, as a Christian parable. And almost all of them agree that it's one of the best movies of all time. Movie critic Roger Ebert included The Shawshank Redemption in his 1999 list of Great Movies.
The movie's greatness lies in Andy's integrity, Morgan Freeman's incredible performance and all those fascinating, carefully observed human frailties. One of the lifers gets paroled and starts living outside of prison. But he is not as happy or as free as we, the viewers, would think he would be. His life, in fact, had been the prison. He knows no other life. And now that he's old and finally a "free" man, he does not know how to function in the "free" world. "These walls are funny," Red says. "First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so dependent on them. That's institutionalized."
The Shawshank Redemption didn't make much money during its theatrical run but it slowly gained admirers. Readers of Empire, a film magazine, chose the movie as the fifth greatest movie of all time in 2004 and two years later, The Shawshank Redemption landed on top of that list.