This is the film

Rating: 10/10 (26 July 2012)

What can I add to all the other reviews here? Just my own feelings about this.
I now realise I watched the film in one of the hardest times, emotionally, I can remember in my life. Thoughts chasing themselves around in my head, heartbroken, paranoid and not well physically. Total mess.
My dear female friend who got me through it all told me this was a film to watch. I initially resisted, thinking it was going to be lightweight, PC fare. I don't know why I thought that.
There's a lacklustre opening sequence -I think. Then you get to see what kind of performance Morgan Freeman is going to turn out this time, and you start to be interested. Then this extraordinary scene flying over the prison, and I think by then you're hooked.
This scene is deeply moving, not least because of the music. It's difficult to see how Thomas Newman's music for this film could possibly be bettered - perfectly listenable to in it's own right, but when you do you're reminded of the boys on the roof in the sun, enjoying their first beer for so long.
They've been touched by Andy's kindness. Sometimes a kindness is thrown back in one's face, but other times a gesture of gratitude is given back - like Haywood getting up and offering Andy one of his beers - and a powerful connection is made.
The film is full of great hardships and unbearable sadness - surely scars that can never completely heal or be forgotten. But it is also full of joy and fun and hope. To capture all the above in a film is a triumph. I started watching the film fairly closed to feeling, but as I watched the end I could not contain my tears, unusually.
So a moment when a film came along at the right time for me, and no doubt for many others