Stephen King has inspired more Hollywood adaptations of his work than almost any other writer. His novels and short stories served as the source material for some of the most acclaimed and iconic horror movies of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, including Brian De Palma’s Carrie, Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining, and Rob Reiner’s Misery. Even now, 50 years after the release of his debut novel, King’s work continues to inspire new, high-profile adaptations (see: Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep and Andy Muschietti’s It).
King is inarguably best known as a horror writer. However, one of the most beloved adaptations of his work also happens to be based on one of his more noteworthy non-horror stories. The film in question, The Shawshank Redemption, has found its place among the most popular and well-known movies in Hollywood history. Despite that, it was an infamous box office bomb when it was released in 1994 — grossing only $16 million in its initial theatrical run. More popular releases, like Quentin Tarantino‘s Pulp Fiction, initially overshadowed it that year. Since then, however, The Shawshank Redemption‘s reputation has improved and grown.
All it takes is one viewing of the film to understand why.
Not your typical prison movie
Based on a 1982 novella by King, The Shawshank Redemption takes place almost entirely within the confines of its eponymous Maine prison. It follows Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a banker who is sentenced to prison for the murders of his wife and her lover. When he arrives at Shawshank, he quickly makes friends with one of his fellow inmates, Red (Morgan Freeman), and learns to overcome the abuse he initially suffers there by using his education and knowledge of the U.S. financial system to ingratiate himself with not only Shawshank’s other prisoners, but also some of its guards and its warden, Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton).
Clocking in at 142 minutes long, The Shawshank Redemption doesn’t ever rush through Andy’s journey. Writer and director Frank Darabont takes his time immersing the viewer in the social dynamics of Shawshank, its geography, and its power structure. The film’s first 90 minutes are comprised largely of short stories involving Andy and Red that are introduced and then neatly — and sometimes tragically — resolved. It’s not an indulgently long movie, but Darabont crafts it with an understanding that its power is directly dependent on how deeply the viewer feels immersed in Andy’s world. If you don’t, then the setbacks he suffers won’t hurt as deeply as they should, and his victories likewise won’t be nearly as cathartic as they need to be.
Life in Shawshank
To achieve this, Darabont constructs Andy’s life in Shawshank detail by detail — giving items like Andy’s rock hammer, the prison library he helps build, and even the cold beers he wins for his fellow inmates on one particularly hot work day the attention and weight that they deserve. Cinematographer Roger Deakins, meanwhile, helps reinforce how both oppressive and isolating Andy’s time at Shawshank feels. Notice, for instance, how the above shot simultaneously communicates the isolation of Andy’s prison cell and the cold, steel enormity of the system he’s been dropped into. Along the way, as Andy’s various steps forward and back are marked by the beginning and end of multiple self-contained chapters, certain overarching through lines emerge. These include Andy’s seemingly beneficial ,but actually toxic friendship with his warden and the battle between hope and despair that the prisoners of Shawshank must wage every day.
For much of The Shawshank Redemption‘s runtime, it’s unclear what story it’s really telling. At first, it seems like it’s doing nothing more than depicting how one man chooses to spend the second half of his life in prison. That’s where the brilliance of its immensely satisfying third act lies, though. Taking the right cues from its King-penned source material, Darabont’s film pulls off one of the most rewarding left turns in cinema history in its final 30 minutes. It doesn’t cheat to do this, either. Instead, the film simply reveals that all of the details it spends so much of its first two-thirds highlighting actually serve an even greater purpose than viewers initially think. Witnessing how those details come together to form an entirely new, unexpected picture is a pleasure the likes of which is truly rare in cinema history.
Characters you care about
None of what it does in its climax would matter, however, if The Shawshank Redemption didn’t do the work to make you truly care about Andy, Red, and the rest of its unlucky inmates. But it does. The film gets you so close to Robbins and Freeman’s beaten-down prisoners that you cannot help but become emotionally invested in their plights. It’s no wonder then why the film has managed over the past 30 years to overcome its initial box office failure and become one of the most revered movies of the 1990s.
In Andy Dufresne, the film takes a person caught in an extremely specific situation and turns him into a symbol of the American everyman. The Shawshank Redemption, in other words, invites viewers to see themselves in Andy and their lives in his. That makes the many injustices he suffers throughout its first two hours hit even harder and closer to home. But Shawshank doesn’t take its viewers’ time or attention for granted, and it rewards those who go into it with open minds and hearts. It does that not only by giving them a cathartic release that is as potent as it is surprising, but also by offering both Andy and them a welcome ray of hope in an otherwise tragic experience — a promise that white beaches and blue seas can be found at the end of even the grayest of stories.
The Shawshank Redemption can be rented or purchased on Amazon Prime Video.