THE ENDING OF THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
COULD IT BE THE MOST FEEL-GOOD HALF-HOUR OF ALL TIME? (YES.)
THE THING THAT is often forgotten about The Shawshank Redemption is just how long we have to wait for the redemption. Like It’s A Wonderful Life and, more recently, Paddington 2, Shawshank takes a deep dive into one character’s misery, putting them through the wringer, making them crawl through a river of shit. In the case of Shawshank, that river isn’t metaphorical, but when Tim Robbins’ Andy Dufresne emerges on the other side, it transforms the entire movie. The last 30 minutes or so (including credits) of Frank Darabont’s Stephen King adaptation, in which we discover how Andy escaped, how the evil Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) receives judgement and how Morgan Freeman’s Red reunites with his old friend, is among the most uplifting in cinema. Time for a little deep dive of our own. River of shit optional.
THE MORNING AFTER 1:46:16 – 1:49:39
“I love misdirection,” Darabont once told this reporter in one of our many discussions about Shawshank. And there’s one hell of a misdirect here, as we’re made to think that Andy Dufresne, beaten into submission by Warden Norton’s obtuse ways, is about to commit suicide. Never mind that we know the title of the film. “When I was writing that, I said, ‘I’d better stack this deck as much as I can, and lead the audience down a path that they think is familiar, and then we whip the blindfold off and reveal to them that they’re on another path altogether,’” says Darabont.
So instead of Andy’s dead body in cell 245, the guards find… nothing. He’s up and vanished, “like a fart in the wind”. And thus, the long crawl begins.
THE ESCAPE 1:49:40 – 1:52:31
As Norton pulls back the poster (“lovely Raquel” Welch in One Million Years B.C.) that had been hiding Andy’s carefully cultivated escape tunnel, Darabont kicks things up a notch, flashing back to the particulars. As we see Andy, over a couple of decades, work on his tunnel at night, we have to suspend our disbelief somewhat. Not that Andy managed to get a cell with no next-door neighbour, thus allowing him to dig a tunnel in the first place. That can be explained by his finding favour with Warden Norton, thanks to his ability to cook the books and launder lorry-loads of lucre. But that he doesn’t wake anyone up with his nocturnal grinding. Regardless, Andy — pushed to the brink by Norton at the exact time his tunnel is finished, which is decidedly convenient — puts everything in place with a glorious bait and switch. That old sleight of hand again. He swaps out the ledgers containing evidence of Norton’s misdeeds for exact copies, and even jettisons his own dirty shoes in favour of Norton’s buffed brogues. “How often do you really look at a man’s shoes?” asks Red in narration. After Shawshank, a lot more often.
THE REDEMPTION 1:52:54 – 1:55:34
Making a bolt for it on a stormy night (another stroke of luck), Andy makes it into the sewage system under Shawshank, and crawls to freedom through what Red calls “500 yards of shitsmelling foulness I can’t even imagine”. And then he’s out, out into the night, out into the rain and the river, ripping his shirt off, laughing in relief and disbelief, free for the first time in years. “I was a little worried about that creek because it was in farm country,” Robbins told Empire. “Some of those places, with all the cow manure and urine, can be pretty toxic. But I didn’t get sick from that.” That shot of Robbins, gleefully turning his face into the rain, became the film’s defining image.
THE JUDGEMENT 1:56:51 – 1:58:50
Andy having artfully absconded with Warden Norton’s misbegotten cash (370 grand and change), and tipped off both the police and press to his corruption, there are three ways Norton can take this. He can go to prison, take his punishment like a man; he can go out, guns blazing; or he can take the easy way out. Which he does, shooting himself, just seconds after realising that he’s the butt of Andy’s last joke. Inside his wall safe is a Bible. Not his Bible, though — Andy’s. And inside, the rock hammer Andy used to dig his tunnel. Right there under everyone’s nose the entire time. And what does the picture hanging over Norton’s wall safe say? “His judgement cometh — and that right soon.” That’s goddamn right.
THE PAROLEE 2:00:40 – 2:11:51
Finally, at the third time of trying, Red gets his parole. And here, as the old ex-con struggles to adjust to life on the outside, asking his grocery store boss for permission to take a piss, Darabont misdirects again, making us fear that Red will go down the same suicidal route taken earlier in the movie by Brooks Hatlen (played by the late James Whitmore).
Eventually, though, Red — bound by a promise he made Andy the night before he escaped — heads to a field in Maine, and finds a message waiting for him. An invitation, really. To come down to Mexico, to the small town of Zihuatanejo, and reconnect. Red takes that chance, deciding to “get busy living rather than get busy dying”. And so he boards a bus, violating his parole. His final words, taken directly from King’s novella, Rita Hayworth And Shawshank Redemption, are achingly beautiful: “I hope to make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand.
I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.”
The original intention was for this to be the film’s ending. “It really is a story about friendship between two men,” says Darabont. “And I thought it was a lovely way to end the story.”
And yes, it would have been nice. It would have been moving. But it wouldn’t have been the closure we needed. Thankfully, for once, studio intervention worked out for the best.
THE REUNION 2:12:01 – END
Legend has it that the very final shot of The Shawshank Redemption, in which Red walks down a Mexican beach to find Andy sanding an old boat, was a last-minute addition. That Darabont had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to shoot it. Nothing could be further from the truth. “That was our last day of principal photography,” he says. “We went down to St Croix in the Caribbean. I know it’s supposed to be Mexico, but we fibbed. It is Hollywood after all.”
What is true, though, is that this concluding scene was the suggestion of Liz Glotzer at Castle Rock, the production company that had backed Darabont on the movie. Darabont had final cut on the film, but nevertheless, this ending was put forward, Glotzer correctly perceiving that audiences didn’t just need the promise of hope. They needed the real thing, right there in front of them; irrefutable, irrepressible. “They said, ‘You don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. Just give it the best shot that you can,’” recalls Darabont. But, after they’d shot it, he found himself warming to it. “In the editing room, we really started to love that ending. We never actually test-screened the movie without that ending. It just became apparent to me how deeply pleasing it was.”
And is. As Thomas Newman’s piano tinkles before the orchestra explodes into strings, as Red and Andy warmly embrace, as redemption is achieved miles away from Shawshank, dry eyes need not apply.