Leave it to Stephen King to write a compelling story in 80 pages. The novella that inspired The Shawshank Redemption was one of four released in the collection "Different Seasons." Another story from that collection inspired Stand By Me. I liked that movie and both stories, but wondered why they had not made a film about Shawshank yet. The characterizations are strong and the backstories are engaging without every breaking the framing device of Red telling the story. So I was quite elated when I first saw the trailer in 1994.
Red, played by Morgan Freeman, is a long-term inmate of the Shawshank prison. He never claims innocence and in the book admits his crime (triple murder, yikes) right away. He's not meant to be sympathetic. He is just trying to make a life for himself. Andy Dufresne is convicted of murder in what seems to be the most open-and-shut case in history. He still maintains his innocence and won't grovel for sympathy. Since there is no death penalty in Maine, he is shipped to Shawshank with a group of convicts. Each new shipment delights the inmates as they are always looking for new people to torment. We are introducted to the sadistic prison guard Hadley and the sanctimonious warden Norton. Andy's work is cut our for him here. And he's immediately attracting the wrong attention.
Time passes and Andy gets to know the inmates in-between his many encounters with a group that the movie (and book) refer to as the "sisters." No one is sympathetic with Andy - they likely went through the same thing - and he does not complain. He reaches out to Red, a known middleman for contraband, for a rock hammer. He wants some semblance of a normal life, so he would like to chisel the rocks he finds in the prison yard. Red is suspicious but agrees to get the item with a substantial markup. This begins a strong friendship in an environment not known for making friends.
Other inmates are introduced as long-time acquaintances of Red. There's the sarcastic Heywood and the old-timer Brooks, who has been running the prison library for decades. When Brooks is finally paroled from a sentence he started in 1905, he is freaked out by the idea of leaving. He tries to manage on the outside, but he has no marketable skills and no one willing to help him. After considering crimes he could commit to go back to prison, he decides he's too old for that nonsense. His story resonates with the other prisoners, who wonder what their lives would be like on the outside. Red doesn't think he could make it. Andy has everything all planned out.
Prison life has its good days and many bad days, but mostly it's just boring. It's all about routine. Any deviation from the plan will result in irritation at best and violence at worst. One day when a group of inmates are tarring a roof on outside detail work, Andy intercedes in one of Hadley's conversations with accountant advice. Hadley is so furious that he is ready to throw him off the roof just for stepping out of line. And yet, he doesn't, maybe realizing that Andy's talents would be of more use if he didn't have a broken neck. When the brass learns of his acumen, he is given more suitable work. And the sisters magically leave him alone.
Andy doesn't have any issues working with the warden. He uses his position to build a library from what used to be a single room. He seems to be in a good place - for prison life, at least - when a young inmate Tommy has evidence that could result in Andy's release. Tommy shared a cell with a maniac who confessed to the crime. While that's not exactly rock-solid testimony, at least it gives Andy badly-needed hope. The warden shuts down the whole plan and makes sure Andy knows where his place is. His equilibrium is shattered and his fellow inmates are getting worried. And they should be.
Although this film blanked on Oscar night thanks to Forrest Gump, it picked up a following on video and is now considered a classic. An innocent man does stand a chance against a corrupt system. And Red, who committed a horrible crime and disdains the idea of "rehabilitation", is given the opportunity to live out his days as a free man. There's something satisfying about that, at least for me. I just hope the Pacific is as blue as it was in his dreams.