#72 - The Shawshank Redemption

Prison life, geology, and this movie are all about two things: time and pressure.

The first two are compared by Morgan Freeman's character in this quiet, pensive 1994 film from director Frank Darabont. The 142 minutes of the movie creep by, but not in a boring way. Instead, time is used in the way it is experienced by the prisoners: time to think it over, time to learn about people, time to change.

Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a man accused of killing his wife and her lover in a crime of passion. He is given two back-to-back life sentences at the Shawshank State Penitentiary in Maine, where he meets a wide variety of characters. Most notable are Morgan Freeman's characterization of Ellis "Red" Redding and James Whitmore as the aging prisoner/librarian Brooks Hatlen. The film spans twenty years in the prison life of Andy and his subsequent escape (sorry if this spoils anything, it's pretty well-known).

The movie received mixed reviews when it first came out. People thought it was too slow and too calculating to be good. It was also a box office bomb, costing $25 million and bringing in only $28 million. Under the mainstream shadow of "Forrest Gump" and the indie shadow of "Pulp Fiction," this movie did not fare very well at any of the award shows. But the film is a rare example of a movie that grows in popularity and critical reception through home video and television showings.

Since it is based on a novella by Stephen King, it is hard to believe that this movie has no elements of horror -- or even real suspense. There is violence typical of King, sure. (Andy is terrorized by a group of homosexual prisoners called "The Sisters" who sexually assault him regularly -- his reactions are haunting.) But there is nothing that would keep even the most horror-phobic awake at night.

Depictions of horror are replaced with depictions of the human will to be free. Andy's baptismal cleansing after crawling through 500 yards of sewer pipes to the outside world is cathartic, quenching, and just very well-acted. Most pitiful, however, is the character of Brooks Hatlen, who is paroled after serving 50 years of his life sentence. A man who knows nothing but prison life struggles to acclimate to the outside world (imagine going into prison in 1960 and coming out in 2010 -- it gives me chills), and ends up losing everything that he held valuable within the stone walls of Shawshank.

The movie excels with its solitude. This is not a barn-burner, full of laughs or action or face-slapping drama. This is a movie about a few men living trapped, by themselves, among hundreds of other men. And that is what makes the movie so captivating.