Hollywood history is dotted with those instances in which films that only received middling-at-best critical and box-office responses upon their initial release wind up growing in stature and acclaim with the passage of time. Maybe the fastest such ascension on record has been enjoyed by the screen adaptation of the Stephen King prison novella The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Fueled by the phenomenon of home video, this story of enduring hope has gained enough of a fervent following that it's been consistently ranked among the films by users of the popular film buff destination site The Internet Movie Database.
The scenario is set in the late 1940s at a foreboding Maine penitentiary known as Shawshank and is told through the eyes of Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), a lifer with a valuable knack for smuggling contraband into the prison, and who has just come off a fruitless parole hearing. Amongst the latest arrivals to the prison community is Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a young bank executive who has wrongly taken the fall for the double murder of his wife and her lover. Red presumes that this unprepossessing figure will be the first of the "fresh fish" to crack under the strain of confinement.
To Red's initial consternation, and eventual admiration, Andy adapts to his circumstances without a whimper, even in the face of assault by a cluster of cons that have targeted him. Circumstances lead to Andy using his skill with finances to get in the good graces of the prison administration, including its corrupt, Bible-toting warden (Bob Gunton) and brutal head guard (Clancy Brown). The course of the narrative follows Andy through nearly 20 years within Shawshank's walls, as he tries to keep his dreams of eventual freedom alive and to spur morale amongst the prison's populace. Events are brought to a head when the warden, eager to keep his gifted money manager close at hand, brutally squelches evidence that could mean Andy's exoneration. Andy’s efforts to return the "favor" take the story to its conclusion.
With its somber scenario, a daunting running time at two hours and 22 minutes, plus a title that defied commercial exploitation (King's literary title of “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” had initially been retained), the film struggled to find a theatrical audience, and reviews were mixed. Its five subsequent Oscar nominations started its original word-of-mouth push, and VHS rentals and cable took care of the rest over the coming years. Screenwriter Frank Darabont very capably realized the King story–part of the same anthology that inspired Rob Reiner's Stand By Me (1986) and Bryan Singer's Apt Pupil (1998)–and made one of the most assured directing debuts in recent memory.
Freeman had the daunting task of propelling this somber story, and he acquitted himself brilliantly, vesting Red with the requisite weight and depth to involve the viewer from start to finish. His efforts in the triad of decades-spanning sequences involving Red's parole hearings are genuinely unforgettable. Robbins also does a remarkable job, making Andy necessarily opaque and inscrutable, yet wholly aware of his and others' need to hang on to some sense of humanity in the most dehumanizing of situations. The supporting cast is uniformly fine, notably Gunton and Brown, as well as an inmate population including James Whitmore, William Sadler, Gil Bellows and David Proval.
