There’s nothing quite like a great fairy tale. And that’s what The Shawshank Redemption is, after all, despite Red’s protestation that “prison ain’t no fairy tale world.” Although I will say that Red is both perfectly wrong and perfectly right here, as he is more than once in the film. The prison itself is no fairy tale world, but when you look at the world entire from inside the prison, this in fact a fairy tale world – the unrepentant evil are punished harshly, the bad who genuinely repent are redeemed, and our hero gets what he wants most in the world.
One of my favourite instances of Red being wrong/right comes from his reaction to the the expression of hope at Andy’s absolutely lowest and darkest moment. In this quiet moment, the two talk as openly as only the closest of friends can, and Andy reveals he still wants to get to his own private Zihuatanejo. Red, hoping to protect his best friend from what seems like harmfully hopeless dreaming, tries to tell him the way things really are.
Andy responds to Red’s efforts with the classic line,”Get busy living, or get busy dying.” The conversation ends shortly thereafter, with Red more concerned than ever for the mind and safety of Andy. It leads into what Red describes as, “That was the longest night of my life.” The next morning, Andy doesn’t show up outside his cell for morning roll call, and then we get treated to five and a half minutes of the most emotionally satisfying combination of voice-over and extended flashback in any movie, ever. And among the wonderful payoffs from countless earlier plants, we have Andy on his way to freedom, after having smashed his way into a shitty pipe using a chunk of concrete.
If you haven’t watched The Shawshank Redemption in a while, it’s always a good time for a rewatch and to savour the little nods scattered throughout, like Red’s cell number matching the cursed hotel room number from The Shining – 237. And if you’ve never seen it before, go get it from your local library this weekend, give it two-and-a-half hours of your attention without a second screen, and experience & enjoy a fairy tale friendship.