THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (A)
Starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Bob Gunton, William Sadler, and Clancy Brown. Screenplay by Frank Darabont. Based on the short story by Stephen King. Directed by Frank Darabont.

My brain wants to say the ending is too neat, that it's a bit romantic about prison and prisoners, that the warden character is a cliched villain (Bible-thumping authoritarian who is as corrupt as they come). But every part of me that loves characters and storytelling was swept up in this film, carried away by its leisurely, deliberate rhythms, which almost have the quality of music with help from Thomas Newman's plaintive score and Morgan Freeman's soothing voiceover work -- which predicts the tender humanity he brought to the narration of another great film he would make ten years later, "Million Dollar Baby."

I've seen a few Stephen King adaptations, and I've noticed that the best of them are the most unassuming, the most willing to use gentle strokes and speak softly: "Hearts in Atlantis," "The Green Mile," a couple of the installments of TNT's recent "Nightmares & Dreamscapes" anthology -- they zero in on specific, lived-in characters and let them unspool at their own pace. The worst adaptations have been hack jobs that progress as gently as a punch in the face: "Dreamcatcher," god help us, an alien invasion mess that Freeman would be better off omitting from his resume.

"Shawshank" falls into the first category. At two-and-a-half hours, it's in no hurry to go anywhere. Following twenty years within prison walls, it gives you the sense of all that time and the somber resignation of more to come. The film's best scene is a prolonged conversation in which Andy (Tim Robbins) and Red (Freeman) discuss what they would do if they ever got out. Red doubts he will ever see freedom; Andy knows more than he says; the scene best expresses the clash of having hope but being afraid to hope that is a central theme. "The Shawshank Redemption" probably isn't the most accurate depiction of prison life I've seen, but it's a hell of a film.