The shawshank redemption is a wonderful film. An old style tale of friendship and hope, filled with complex characters. In a sea of evil, surrounded by all the dark detritus, there is always hope. Hope and friendship - real friendship - not the fakery we often come across in our lives where those people purposefully choose to be false for whatever reason. Hope is probably one of the most important of things. Something to hold onto and embrace..
Andy Dufresne is convicted of murdering his wife and is sentenced to two life sentences back to back at Shawshank prison. Not the flashiest of characters, Tim Robbins embues him with a quiet sense of humanity, a humble intelligent man with numbers. His crime being the folly we all have witnessed: neglect and apathy. It set him on a colision course that will ultimately change his life forever.
Some of the most affecting scenes are the quietest. A distant look of Brooks as the darkness closes in around him, the realisation dawns on him that he is an institutionalised man and doesn’t see a place in the world for himself anymore. The screenplay is littered with great scenes and quotable dialogue, a testamount to Darabonts skill as a writer.
Elis ‘Red’ Redding played by Morgan Freeman was initially envisioned in the screenplay as a red headed irish caucasion. Freeman makes the character his own, giving him a steely humanity and a sense of morality. In this regard Shawshank holds true, a tale of morality with honour and fortitude at the centre. I couldnt imagine anyone else playing this role, Freeman’s silken voice over a key storyteller its own right.
Although the movie is deliberately slow it never gets boring, the sedate storytelling key in building this sense of friendship throughout the years between Red and Dufresne. In truth, it is a love story of sorts, a tale of two mens platonic love for one another that transcends the steely confines of shawshank prison.
There are stock characters to be found like the Warden Norton and Captain Hadley but they are treated as the flip side of honour and hope. That without honour and morals you ultimately self destruct.
In the end when ‘Red’ reunites with Dufresne it was supposed to fade out on the bus ride to Texas (in the screenplay) which would have robbed us witnessing hope come to fruition. It is something we needed to see. The final shot of them embracing in friendship as the crystal blue ocean breaks onto the shore, gives the film finality. A resolution that hope springs eternal.