The Shawshank Redemption is commonly regarded as one of the best movies ever, and that’s partly thanks to one detail that was cut from the original Stephen King story. Based on the 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, this Frank Darabont film received overwhelmingly critical acclaim right from the get-go, as viewers connected with its prison escape narrative.
As a well-loved movie that’s sat at the top of the IMDb top 250 for what feels like forever, the mix of great performances, strong writing, and powerful use of music has earned The Shawshank Redemption universal praise. However, King’s story fills in some gaps that were best left alone and makes it hard to connect with its cast of convicts.
The Shawshank Redemption Movie Is Vague About Red’s Crime, But Stephen King’s Book Is Not
The Shawshank Redemption movie keeps Ellis Boyd ‘Red’ Redding’s backstory vague, and Morgan Freeman’s incredible performance means it’s easy to connect with this contraband smuggler who befriends Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins). As a story that’s just as much about friendship in trying times as it is about the innate desire for freedom, the pair’s relationship is central to the film.
However, King’s original novella doesn’t hold back on explaining Red’s dark past and the reason for his incarceration. The truth is that Red grew up poor but later married a woman who came from a wealthy family. Knowing that his wife had a sizeable life insurance policy, he came up with a sinister plan to benefit from it.
Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption was originally published as part of Stephen King’s collection Different Seasons, which also included Apt Pupil, The Body, and The Breathing Method.
With plans to murder his wife for an insurance payout, Red cut the brakes on her car and orchestrated a horrible so-called accident. However, things took an even darker turn as Red’s wife picked up her neighbor and infant child, and all three died as a result. This meant Red was responsible for the deaths of three innocent people.
Knowing Red’s Crime Would Have Made Morgan Freeman’s Character So Much Harder To Like
Director Frank Darabont makes significant changes to Red’s character in his adaptation of The Shawshank Redemption. In Stephen King’s novella, Red is a white Irishman, but the film playfully acknowledges this with a quick nod to his supposed Irish heritage, even as Morgan Freeman’s portrayal is deeply shaped by his own African American idenтιтy.
However, the biggest change is leaving out the truth of Red’s crimes. As a heinous and selfish murder plot that shows a complete disregard for the sancтιтy of human life, knowing Red is capable of such a thing makes it difficult to empathize with him.
Freeman plays Red as a wise, compᴀssionate man, making it easy to ᴀssume his prison sentence stems from bad choices, misfortune, or prejudice. But learning he plotted his wife’s murder and inadvertently caused a child’s death forces audiences to confront a darker truth, complicating our perception of his otherwise sympathetic character.
With full knowledge of Red’s backstory, it makes it harder for audiences to root for him, and no prison escape story feels justified if one of the criminals truly deserved a harsh prison sentence. Unlike Andy, who maintains his innocence throughout, there was no uncertainty about Red’s guilt, and he is serving his sentence because he committed the crime.
Red Doesn’t Get “Redemption” If The Audience Knows What He Did
Like the тιтle suggests, The Shawshank Redemption is a story of redemption and second chances, but that theme only really works when we’re actively rooting for the characters. With knowledge of Red’s troubled past, it’s hard to reconcile his crimes and root for his freedom. Especially with the death of a child involved, Red becomes a darker character.
The film made the right decision when it opted to keep the true nature of Red’s crimes a mystery; without the concrete details of his incarceration laid out for viewers, it’s a lot easier to accept the possibility of his redemption. In the book, he was a calculated killer, which poses difficult questions for his future life on the outside.
As one of the few film adaptations that most agree is superior to the original book, The Shawshank Redemption was a masterclass in gaining audiences’ empathy and encouraging us to believe in the power of hope, forgiveness, and the possibility for change. This came from embracing the old adage that less is more, especially when it comes to characters’ dark backstories.,
Like much of King’s work, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption reveled in the darkest realms of human impulse, while Darabont’s film had a much more hopeful and open-hearted feeling to it. The film didn’t want us to have a moral quandary over Red’s redemption story and instead allowed us to see his escape as an innately positive development.
There’s a reason The Shawshank Redemption has endured in the public consciousness so well after all these years, and that’s because it’s a story that viewers can connect with on a deeply human level. With universal themes of hope, friendship, and the willingness to persist against impossible odds, The Shawshank Redemption remains a perfect 10/10 movie.
