The Shawshank Redemption

Let me be honest. (I am aware those four words are specifically how liars begin statements. But I won't jive you this time. Promise.) Honestly, I have been having the crappiest couple of days in living memory. Watching this movie was the right decision. It helped me keep things in perspective. As hellish as these days have seemed to me, there are always people dealing with and coming through worse. Good thing to remember.

How is this famously loved movie? Am I going to give it one of my famous contrary negative reviews? No, I'll give it the highest grade of five stars. Won't rock the boat there. But I do need to note I DO prefer the novella. The movie has some selling points the book does not (namely seeing Red and Andy reunite at the very end) but the novella is the better story.

In fairness, the prose story is pretty short, so of course movie has to add some stuff. Brooks only took up a paragraph or two in the novella, and he's major supporting character here. Likewise the awesome scene of Andy playing the Italian opera record is only in the movie. But the cool thing about the prose story to me is the way Red (who is Narrator) tells it. A LOT of what he says is his best estimate. And because he has to make educated guesses about the escape and how Andy vanished without a trace, he raises interesting points the movie does not and cannot. What if Andy had gotten all the way to the end of the pipe on the outside and there was a grate over it? It seems like a plothole in the movie. In reality Red imagines it kept Andy up at night worrying about things like that. Yes, Andy was a meticulous planner in that escape. But a LOT of it was down to luck and things he had no control over.

Take the fake identity. In the movie is it cultivated as a way to launder money for Norton, and Andy uses it to screw him instead. In the book Andy had set up the false identity and a stash of money shortly BEFORE he was incarcerated. He had plans to escape even before he entered the prison, and Red surmises that, jeez, it must have killed Andy not knowing if the place he buried the papers and money could have been paved over for a strip mall, decades later or not. Much less if the rock wall with the stone that has no business being there was still even there, or that somebody hadn't found that money beforehand and already stolen it. Yes, Andy is clever and outwitted the Obtuse warden. But a lot of it is down to luck going in his favor, even when it probably shouldn't have.

And I can prefer the novella all I want. The truth is nothing in it makes me laugh as much as the moment at the end when Red sits alone in the field, opens the envelope, sees the huge wad of cash, and foolishly looks around to see if anyone is observing him and looking to steal it from him. The way Morgan Freeman plays it is freaking endearing. And the thing is, even if that had happened to the Irish white Red as seen in the book, it's not exactly something he would have written down for posterity in the memoir he was writing. So again, yes, the movie has selling points the book does not.

In the book Tommy and the Warden don't have gruesome ends. Why not? Because they didn't need to. I know it's different for a movie, and the expectations for drama are different, but I'm still annoyed Tommy is gunned down when the transfer would have silenced him just as well. To the movie's credit, him bonding with Andy to get his diploma is NOT in the novella, so I probably take his death harder here than I would have in the book for that reason. The cynic in me calls that manipulative storytelling. The realist in me calls it effective storytelling.

I have talked to a real life ex-con and the interesting thing they told me is that Brooks and Red's perspective of "being institutionalized" and wanting to stay in prison after being there for decades rather than be forced out into the real world is not true. The con I talked to claimed every single person in prison would walk out and accept freedom if offered. I believed him (and still do) but over the years since he told me that I've had reason to give it a second thought. While I agree with him that it sounds likely to me nobody in prison would hold a knife to somebody's else throat upon getting paroled, the recidivism rate of ex-cons suggests many of them just can't make it on the outside and consider prison easier. Every single one of those people would take the freedom if offered. And be back in prison within six months because they don't know anything else.

The movie is shockingly faithful to the book. Stephen King is not often granted that gift. I think the major difference to me is the movie plays up the big dramatic moments in big dramatic movie fashion. The novella is a page-turner instead, so it doesn't pause on the huge moments with a sense of orchestral majesty. I think the reason I prefer the book is I get lost in the book. For the movie, it does a LOT of stuff that reminds me it's just a movie. And maybe it wouldn't have if the novella either didn't exist or I had never read it. But it feels like a LOT of the confrontations and conversations are a LOT more arch and forced than the original story made them. Probably by dramatic necessity.

I love that the movie remembered at the very beginning to have Andy ruefully say at his trial that since he was innocent of the crime in question, the disappearance of the murder weapon was in fact INCONVENIENT. It's brilliant because it's true, a great defense, and maybe should go without saying. It's also deadpan hilarious the way Tim Robbins says it.

Oscar snub discussion time: I recently rewatched Pulp Fiction too, and sorry Shawshank fans, that movie has it ALL over this one in every respect. It SHOULD have won the Oscar. That being said that doesn't excuse Shawshank losing to an absolutely terrible movie like Forrest Gump. Just because Pulp Fiction is the superior film doesn't make Shawshank's loss against Gump any less unfair. If anything it makes me even angrier. I believe I saw four of the five 1995 best picture nominees in 1994 at some point (although it's been awhile, and I missed Four Weddings And A Funeral). Forrest Gump wasn't simply the worst movie to ever win an Oscar. It was probably the worst film of the five films nominated that year (although I'm guessing Four Weddings had no business being nominated either). I get the bitterness people have at that in hindsight. But Frank Darabont, and even Robert Redford, have as much reason to be resentful about that as Quentin Tarantino does.

Do I agree with all of the movie surveys that put this movie on top as the most loved best movie ever? No. But why does it need to be? That ain't the freaking bar, and even if I think it's overrated for THAT, that specific judgment is NOT something the movie itself sought out. I'm not going to penalize the movie for other people loving it more than I do. That's stupid. And it's still a pretty great film anyways. *****.