The Shawshank Redemption

I was still in high school when I saw this truly magnificent film. It's so mesmerizing that I have even memorized some of the lines spoken in the movie. With a haunting musical score and flawless narration by Morgan Freeman, this film was edged out of the Oscars only by Forrest Gump.

The Shawshank Redemption was an adaptation of Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. It chronicled the life story of Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), a bank executive, who was wrongfully accused of murdering his wife and her lover. Serving almost two decades at the Shawshank facility for hardened criminals and outlaws, Andy earned the respect and admiration of his fellow inmates and his jailguards and even the ruthless warden by his incurably optimistic attitude towards life and his ominous silence and endurance of sufferings.

He made numerous friends, as well as enemies inside but his greatest contribution was "setting free" every man in Shawshank including their jailers. In a poignant scene in the movie, where Andy put a microphone on the phonograph, he earned a month's detention. Nevertheless, as Red (Morgan Freeman) put it:

"We never knew what those two Italian women were singing. But we all know, that for the brieftest of moment, everyman in Shawshank, was free."

And when Andy made his great escape from the prison, everyone felt happy but at the same time sad. Red said:

"Some birds are not meant to be kept because their feathers are too bright. Yet when they leave, something in you dies... Sometimes something's too painful that they cannot be expressed in words and that is why it makes our hearts ache."

Released in 1994.
Directed by: Frank Darabont.
Actors: Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman