Over the last couple of years, my parents have made me watch movies that came out when they were my age. The most recent movie we watched was Shawshank Redemption. This movie came out in 1994 and is based on the 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King. Given the name, I had to idea what to expect from this movie, but when it was over, I had been led through a journey of the judicial system and prison life in the middle of the 20th century.  The characters came to life in a way that showed true friendship, making the most of the situation you are in while never losing hope for a better life.

The movie starts out in a courtroom where Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) , a prominent banker from Maine was in a courtroom being tried for the murder of his wife and her lover. He is found guilty and sentenced to life in prison at Shawshank State Penitentiary, even though he claimed he was innocent. As he adapts to prison life, Andy meets Ellis Redding, “Red” (played by Morgan Freeman). Red is the man who knows how to get things from the outside, for a price. The first thing Andy asks for is a rock hammer and a poster of Rita Hayworth for his jail cell. This is a start of a true friendship between Andy and Red. They rely on one another and help each other out when they need it.

At this point, the movie gets a little slow. Life continues on for Andy, Red and the other inmates. Every day the conditions inside the prison tries to take away any hope the inmates may have for better life. They learn to find happiness and hope in the little things inside prison to make life still seem worth living. The turning point in the movie comes when Andy and Red, along with a few other inmates get picked to tar the roof of a government building. As the prisoners work, one of the guards mentions how he is inheriting a large sum of money but is upset that the government will be taking such a large piece of it. Knowing a tax loophole, Andy asks the guard if he trusts his wife. The guard gets angry and threatens Andy for eavesdropping and thinking he is better than the guards. Andy quickly explains that by giving the inheritance to his wife, it is a gift and the government cannot touch it. The one thing Andy asks for in return is beers for the other workers on the roof. For just a few minutes, the workers feel like regular guys enjoying a cold one after work. They have hope that things will get better for them. This one piece of financial advice starts Andy on a different path in prison. He becomes the finance guy for the other guards and more importantly Warden Norton (played by Bob Gunton). 

Andy is assigned to work in the library and starts “helping” Warden Norton launder money through the prison, making the warden a very rich man. Andy says to the other inmates  “on the outside I was an honest man. I had to come to prison to become a crook.” He has found his niche in prison. Making the most out of the situation he is in. He knows that if he continues to help the warden, he can also make the conditions better for the other inmates. By 1965, Andy had created a library in the prison that is the best around and started a program to help other inmates get their GED. 

Little did Andy realize that his GED assistance program would wind up changing his life. Tommy Williams (played by Gil Bellows) comes to Shawshank and takes advantage of the GED program. Eventually he opens up to them saying when he was at another prison, his cellmate talked about how they were responsible for killing a prominent banker’s wife and her lover in Maine many years ago and the banker was convicted of the crime. 

Filled with true hope for the first time in a long time and taking advantage of his relationship with Warden Norton, Andy takes this information to the warden, hoping his sentence can be reversed. Warden Norton does not want to give up the money laundering scheme Andy has set up. Instead, Warden Norton shoots Tommy under the guise of Tommy trying to escape. At this point, I felt like Andy would lose all hope. Then came the climax I never saw coming. 

The night of a big storm, Andy was finished working on the accounting ledgers for the warden. As the warden was leaving, he asked Andy to shine his shoes for him before Andy went back to his cell. You see Andy doing that and then the next morning, Andy is gone. Warden Norton goes into Andy's cell trying to find clues, he picks up one of the rocks sitting on the windowsill and throws it at the Raquel Welch poster hanging on the cell wall. Instead of bouncing off the poster, the rock rips the poster and gets lost. They tear the poster off the wall and realize that Andy has dug an escape route over the last twenty years using the small rock hammer Red got him when he first arrived. The entire time Andy was in prison, he never gave up hope that one day he would be free again. Every day he inched a little closer to his goal of escape. 

Red narrated a flashback of the night before going over how Andy escaped. Red said, “Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of bad smelling foulness I can’t even imagine”. On his first day of freedom, Andy walked into the banks where he had set up the money laundering accounts using the identification of the alias he created for Randall Stephens and withdrew all the money. 

During his twenty years in prison, Andy never gave up hope. Even though he was wrongly accused of murder, he knew eventually he would make it back to the outside world again. The friendship he formed with Red helped him stay sane in an otherwise punishing time. He showed true friendship to his fellow inmates by using his skills he learned as a banker, he was able to make the conditions in the prison better for him and for his friends. 

I did not think I would like this movie but by the end, I could see why my parents wanted me to watch it. The idea of always having hope, even when things are difficult, is a very powerful thing. With hope, you can accomplish almost anything. As I look towards the end of my senior year and the start of college, I need to remember to have hope. Hope to make the best of a difficult situation. Hope to form lasting friendships. Hope for a fulfilling future.