Uplifting and sincere

Rating: Null/10 (25 January 1999)

The key scene in The Shawshank Redemption comes when Red is confronted by Andy Dufresne with the fact that he has given up hope. "Hope is a dangerous thing," says Red, and we understand, after the trials he has been through, why he can say this and believe it. And because this is such a well-crafted film, we can also see why Andy refuses to accept this philosophy, because by this time we have come to know them both so well. The movie follows the lives of these two men, who have come to Shawshank Prison at different times in their lives, as very different people. Red has been there long enough, denied parole enough times that he no longer waits for the day he will be released, but for the days he makes his pickup at the laundromat for the goods he sells to the inmates. Andy was a wealthy banker on the outside, who is sentenced to prison for killing his wife and lover in a nightmarish trial, the kind where every shred of evidence points to culpability. The movie casts doubt on his guilt long before it reveals what actually happened. In prison he faces beatings, rape and oppression, but there is some kind of redemption here, too; as the film's title suggests, this is not a joyless foray into prison life but a story about the way two different men cope with the day to day routine of incarceration, and what follows beyond it. What amazed me, watching the movie, is the the filmmakers have pulled of the tricky job of taking this material that could have been cloying and made it plausible, even meaningful. It is worth seeing just as a statement about how the choices we make in life are more important than what happens to us.