A moving experience whose profound beauty will take you totally... off-guard ...

Rating: 9/10 (27 April 2012)

Death is not sad by essence for no one can ever experience the sadness of his own death. But death is sad because it takes from us the persons we loved and loved us, those who witnessed our lives or a part of it, those who shared with us the happiest or saddest moments. And death is also the measure of love, as we only realize the value of people when we miss them. And while "The Green Mile" is set in a prison's death row, but it tackles the subject of death to better highlight the value of love.
Love, maybe more than any other feeling, requires patience, trust and understanding. In simpler terms, it takes its time, and so does "The Green Mile". It might be three-hour long but like so many great films, it never feels too long, which wouldn't surprise if you consider the name of the director, Frank Darabont. Like its glorious predecessor, "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Green Mile" embraces the passing of time with a gripping melancholy, leaving us at the end with a haunting sensation, conveyed by the titular metaphor.
The Green Mile refers to the last mile walked by the condemned prisoner to the execution, and as explained by the old Paul Edgecomb (Dabbs Greer in a quite moving performance): "the floor was the color of faded limes", hence the color. Of course, the distance is shorter than a mile, but when we get to the core of the allegory, we see that we're all sentenced to death ("We all owe a death" as says Paul) so we all, technically, have green miles of various distances. Paul Edgecomb is the hero of the film and he tells in flashback, a story set in 1935, the very year he met John Coffey, a giant black man, played by Michael Clarke Duncan, sentenced to death for the murder and the raping of two white little girls.
To say that Michael Clarke Duncan delivered a magnificent performance would not only be an understatement as gigantic as his body, but it would overlook the performances of the entire cast: David Morse as Brutal Howell, the tallest and strongest guard, James Cromwell as Hal, the comprehensive warden and Patricia Clarkson, his cancer-stricken wife. The cast also includes Doug Hutchinson as Percy Whitmore, a sadistic little guard; Barry Pepper as one of the same age, much more appreciated. And in the death row, there's Michael Jeter as the simple-minded Cajun Eduard Delacroix aka Ed, and the pervert Bill Wharton, played by Sam Rockwell. If I add Harry Dean Stanton and Graham Greene in smaller roles, you have one of the greatest casts ever featured in a film.
The cast plays a significant part because these are people we care about, no matter how big or small their roles are, each one shines at a moment or another, providing an extra level of depth in characterization, and when they leave us, we can't help but feel something cruelly missing, as if we were really experiencing death as a human loss. But aside from the acting, the directing and the writing are responsible for this level of empathy we feel. Indeed, the film doesn't embarrass itself with subtleties or nuances when it comes to the characters, the guards are all sympathetic and Percy is clearly the main antagonist, doing everything to be unpopular both among the guards and the viewers. And in the prisoners' group, while they're all bad people by society's standards, only Wild Bill stands out as the evil one. In the hand of another director, this wouldn't have worked, but with Darabont it does.
Darabont may not be the best director of his generation, nor the best writer, but he's got one rare talent: he's a wonderful storyteller. And this talent shows in his films, he has a unique ability to transport you in his universe with such respect and carefulness that you forget all the elements that could undermine the believability of the story. How can the death row's corrections officer guards be so mild-mannered? How wasn't John Coffey lynched at the very minute he was found grabbing two little girls' bodies in his arms, what's more, by a Southern angry mob? Why falling in the 'Magic Negro' stereotype again? I was so mesmerized by the story, and so focused on the supernatural power of Coffey and the bonding it inspired in the block E, that I unconsciously wiped all these considerations.
And I enjoyed "The Green Mile" for what it was, a great MOVIE. And I emphasize the word 'movie' because there's a sort of genius in the way Darabont sticks to cinematic conventions. Darabont never hesitates to use archetypes because he's confident over his material; he knows that his screenplay is adapted from one hell of a story, written by the king Stephen. And it sure pays off, the story has the thrills of the electric chairs scenes, the heart-pounding horrific moment when the machinery goes wrong, it has the laughs, the joy, the emotion, and even a nice little comic relief incarnated by a little mouse named Mister Jingles. And not falling into the trap of anti-death penalty patronizing statements, the film speak much deeper truths about life and death, and the way love play the crucial and sometimes heart-breaking role of a missing link.
The film does sometimes get a little too emotional, efficiently taking some tears from our eyes, but even tears can make us miss the more powerful message of the film for men, about the way they can miss the very purpose of life by turning evil, as one of the most insightful illustrations of evil is given, as something that exploits the best side of us for malicious schemes. Like death, you only feel evil, when it takes those you love. The film is too intelligent for its emotionality  sometimes. But nonetheless, its profound beauty always takes me  off-guard.