Shawshank!
It is probably a Friday or Saturday night. I know exactly that soon enough my boyfriend will nag me about watching one of the movies that apparently “changed his life”. The only problem here is that we have completely different taste in movies. While he loves blood and gore movies, or everything action, I am perfectly happy with Mean Girls, When Harry Met sally, or any lightweight movie. However, the line: “If you watch this movie with me, you can pick the next two movies”, gets me everytime. The devious inside me starts thinking about the most girlie movies that were ever made, something along the lines of “Clueless”. Eventually, I give in, mostly because I am aware that this specific topic has gotten us into real fights before. It is just not worth it. Will this time a specific movie change a perspective in me, teach me a valuable lesson, or am I going to be miserable until it ends? Well, I will grab my popcorn, and we shall see.
And so it starts. I still carry a little bit of attitude with me because what in the world could be so good and “life changing” about “Shawshank Redemption” ? What’s Shawshank ? Why is this movie 2 hours and 20 minutes long ? I hate long movies. Morgan Freeman is in it ? I literally love that guy. Oh, Susan Sarandon’s ex husband is the main character ? It’s a shame they broke up, such a nice couple. So I continue to blabber until I get “the look” that tells me to zip it and enjoy the movie in silence for once. Andy Dufresne, wrongly convicted, is sentenced to two life terms in Shawshank prison ( now i understand) for the murder of his wife and her lover. Shawshank prison is populated with cruel guards, predatory inmates, and just pure evilness. Prison rape is strongly implied, even though it is not graphically shown, it is still hard to watch. While Andy’s world is falling apart and he has to adjust to his new life in prison, he befriends Redding (Morgan Freeman), who helped him through difficult times and showed him the true meaning of friendship even in very difficult circumstances. Eventually, Andy uses his past as a banker to get a job at the prison’s library. His financial responsibilities start with filing the guards tax returns, but they soon expand to laundering money for the various prison wardens. With time, he becomes a valuable financial resource to those who run the prison.
I forget about the movie and what is going on for a moment, and my mind starts to wander how surprising life is. One day you have a perfectly balanced life, nice job, a family, everything seems in order, and the next day you find yourself in prison sentenced for lifetime. It’s funny how life can take such wide turns, without even a warning. You are in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and unfortunately your life could be over. This could happen to me, my loved ones, and sometimes there is no way to prevent such things. Everything you have worked for in your life crashes, and the world falls in your feet. Depressing.
As times passes, Andy requests from Redd to provide him with a rock hammer given to his passion in rock collecting and carving, cleaning cloths, and weirdly, a poster of Rita Hayworth. Being the amazing friend, Redd fulfills Andy’s request. Eventually, the friendship between Andy and Redd grows stronger, and Andy trusts Redd with the information that he had a friend set up a false identity for him. Under this identity, his friend invested around $14.000 of Andy’s money, which has since become more than $370.000. However, he doesn’t have access to the money, because by doing so he could expose himself and lose everything. The documents are kept safe at a local bank, the key to which has been hidden under a volcanic rock into a stone wall near the prison. Andy dreams of escaping the prison, assuming the new identity, and he wishes for his friend to join him in freedom.
As I said in the beginning, this movie is 2 hours and 20 minutes long. If it was up to me, I would sit here and write as much details as I could. Unfortunately, I can’t do so because I would spoil the amazing ending. I will say though, that Andy did escape the prison after 20 years of misery, but that is not what made this movie so amazing. It is how he escaped from it and the courage he had to do so. The story of Andy’s escape spreads throughout the prison and he becomes the symbol of hope for many prisoners, not as a man who successfully escaped, but as the man who never lost faith and hope. As for Redd, he got released shortly after his friend, and he turned his life around. Soon enough after his release, Redd goes in search of the stone wall his friend used to talk about. When he finds it, he discovers a letter addressed to him from his mate who would completely change his life and his future.
Hope! Never lose hope. Life could take us in weird and mysterious places. We could lose everything we have, start from scratch. Yes, it is hard to even imagine. Giving up and letting ourselves fall is not the answer. We have to rise, work hard and hope that one day things will turn around and life will start again. This movie most definitely taught me that lesson and I‘m sure that is going to stick with me forever. Even in the most depressing situations, people have to stick for one another, give a hand, and help out with whatever they can. “So, what did I tell you ?”, is the question I got when the credits came on and I was deep in my thoughts. I didn’t say much, but inside my head I was thinking, “Who knew that a movie would really change my life a little bit.”
